


love is like a sin, my love

by star_sky_earth



Series: sleep [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Best Friends Forever, Brother/Sister Incest, Consent Issues, Dirty Talk, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Somnophilia, Incest, Jealousy, Multi, Possessive Behavior, Pseudo-Incest, The 100 (TV) Kink Meme, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 50,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_sky_earth/pseuds/star_sky_earth
Summary: It’s been weeks since Bellamy started seeing Clarke, weeks since he’s let Octavia touch him. Weeks of steadily building tension with no means for release, Octavia’s mood declining further every day, sniping at him every chance she gets, taking any opportunity to push his buttons, just daring him to do something. Bellamy can’t tell how much of her anger is down to the sudden withdrawal of her favourite toy, how much is just the usual teenage rebellion, a natural testing of boundaries as she starts to grow up. He feels paralysed, no idea where to begin to try and repair their relationship, get it back to something even approaching normal.How do you start? To fix something that you can’t even acknowledge is broken?
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Blake/Octavia Blake, Bellamy Blake/Octavia Blake/Clarke Griffin, Octavia Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: sleep [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1261004
Comments: 57
Kudos: 134





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe it's almost been a year since I started this series? (Well, you probably can, considering the length of time that you're all forced to wait between updates!) I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to express how grateful I am for all the amazing comments, messages (even anons!) and encouragement I've received from readers over the last few months, both here and on tumblr. When I'm tired and writing seems like the last thing I ever want to do again, it's you lot that keep me going. 
> 
> Honestly, if any fic can be considered a group effort, it's this one. Enjoy!
> 
> For Alyssa.

The girls don’t remember Aurora leaving.

Not really. They were too young to understand what was happening, the enormity of it, the subtle, shattering difference between _the last time_ and every other time that Aurora walked out of the door. By the time that Octavia finally realised that her mommy wasn’t coming back, she was already long gone, a loss owing more to the past than the present tense, the pain barely more than a memory, distant and ever receding.

As befitted their opposing personalities, Clarke and Octavia reacted in very different ways to her departure. Octavia refused, and still refuses, to talk about it, every one of Bellamy’s tentative attempts over the years met with tense silence or feigned indifference, the depth of her feeling shown only through the depth of her denial. Clarke, on the other hand, _won’t stop_ talking about it, a font of seemingly endless questions about what happened and his recollections of it, what little she’s told him of her own memories fuzzy and limited, distorted by the self-centred lens of childhood. Bellamy isn’t sure what’s worse - his sister’s terrifying, almost pathological blankness, or Clarke’s clumsy concern, her fumbling attempts to comfort him, at once both beautifully and unbearably earnest.

His sweet girl has a big heart, grown overripe and swollen on other people’s pain, always threatening to split open. Bellamy can’t, and won’t, allow her to carry his pain as well.

Because, unlike his sisters, Bellamy remembers in exact, excruciating detail the moment that his mom left. 

And why it was his fault. 

\- -

Bellamy was six years old when his mom told him that she was going to have a baby. With no extended family to speak of, and only sporadic attendance at any kind of preschool, babies were something of a mystery - his real life experience limited to the occasional disinterested glance at covered strollers from which strange smells and strangled, half-animal noises seemed to continuously emanate. The majority of his knowledge came from TV and advertising: chubby faces with gaping, toothless grins staring out at him from screens and the front covers of magazines; Gerber babies with big blue eyes and wispy blonde hair arranged in perfect curls; cherubs with fat little bodies and tiny angel wings implausibly lodged between their shoulder blades.

It didn’t make any kind of sense to Bellamy, that anyone would give something so tiny and perfect to his mom to look after, to come and live with them in their shabby, run-down house with the broken front gate and the musty-smelling carpet. Babies looked like another one of those things that belonged to a different type of mom, a different kind of family. It must be a mistake, he thought, having already learned the hard way that things rarely turned out how you expected them to, and never as well as you wanted them to.

Even his mom’s pregnancy didn’t look anything like it was supposed to. Other kid’s moms got bigger when they were having babies. Bellamy had seen them, waddling round like ducks, swollen bellies spilling out over the straining waistbands of their stirrup pants, cupping their bumps with carefully protective hands, smug smiles on their glowing faces. Pregnancy had the opposite effect on Aurora, who if anything only appeared to shrink, body dwindling away at the same rate as her stomach rapidly grew, looking like it was continuously on the verge of buckling under the additional burden. The heavy weight of her bump only highlighted the scrawniness of her limbs, the dullness of her skin, the permanent shadows etched under her eyes, steadily darkening until they looked like twin bruises.

His misgivings were confirmed when his mom came home from the hospital and, sinking heavily onto the couch, blearily shoved his new little sister into his arms.

Octavia was an ugly baby. Objectively, extravagantly ugly, so much so that Bellamy couldn’t help but stare at her, transfixed and sickly fascinated. She looked more like a frog than a human, splayed out and helpless in his arms, head far too big for her body, skinny arms and legs sprouting in every direction. Exceptionally hirsute for a newborn, she had a fine dusting of dark fuzz over her entire body, culminating in an inpenetrable tangle of thick black hair that stood up in uneven tufts all over her massive, weirdly shaped head. Underneath her crinkled brows, her face was bright red from screaming, tiny hands screwed up into even tinier fists that thrashed and hammered at the empty air, barely taking the time to breathe in between each tortured, full-throated cry.

And yet, somehow, it didn’t matter. Bellamy gazed down at this tiny creature - part frog, part monkey, part demonic Troll doll - and felt his whole world shift startlingly into focus. He loved Octavia immediately, violently, to a depth and whole-hearted degree that he’d never quite managed to love his mother, for whom he felt only a queasy combination of both intense need and aversion, Aurora having been an equal source of anxiety and comfort throughout his young life. 

Holding Octavia in his arms, Aurora already fast asleep on the couch next to them, Bellamy realised that he’d been right all along. Somebody - whoever was in charge of these kind of things - had definitely made a mistake. There was no way that this baby had been meant for his mom to take care of.

She’d been meant for him.

\- -

Bellamy’s childhood wasn’t measured in anything so simple or straightforward as years or months, the usual segments of standardised time, routine and predictable. All the ordinary things that structured other children’s lives - the steady, reliable rotation of summer and winter, weekday and weekend, term-time and vacation - barely registered to him, having very little relevance to his own chaotic home life. The Blake family home had its own, secret calendar, a stumbling rhythm that he taught Octavia to navigate in the same way that other big brothers might teach their younger siblings to ride a bike, or colour within the lines. 

As the two children aged, their mom’s presence at home - such a simple thing, so thoughtlessly taken for granted in other families - became more and more sporadic, her absences increasing in both frequency and length until she spent more time away from home than in it. By the time that Octavia started school, having Aurora at home was more of a surprise than an expectation, and she’d long since given up on justifying her numerous disappearances, explanations neither requested nor volunteered. Bellamy was a smart kid, and he quickly became skilled at covering for his mom, always ready with a list of excuses that he made Octavia memorise, running through drills every morning as they walked to school. Truth be told, he probably needn’t have bothered. In his experience, adults generally tended to ignore anything that looked like it might cause them extra trouble, and their teachers showed no inclination to investigate the homelife of two reasonably well-behaved kids who turned up to classes on time, appropriately dressed and adaquately fed. 

To the other kids at school, a world without adults probably sounded like fun. A world without bedtimes, without rules or consequences, eating candy for dinner and staying up past midnight, doing whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. They didn’t think about the reality of it. The never-ending math of poverty, balancing the food in the cupboard against the money in his pocket and the number of days until his mom might come back. The overwhelming responsibility of looking after Octavia, the only one there to make sure that she was fed and clothed and washed, even the slightest scratch or bump enough to spark wild fears of hospital visits and social workers. The tight knot of anxiety that Bellamy carried around with him all the time, the constant worry that maybe this time his mom wouldn’t come back, that he’d slip up and make some stupid mistake, draw the wrong kind of attention, that he’d lose his little sister forever. Other kids didn’t think about any of that stuff. They didn’t have to. Bellamy hated them, sometimes, all those other kids with their normal homes and their normal families, their lives that opened up and spread out before them like a wide, sunlit path, while he was left behind in the dark, trapped in a life that grew smaller and smaller every day until he felt like he was choking on it. 

It was worth it though, for Octavia. No price was too high to pay for his mischievous, miraculous little sister, half as big and twice as loud as he’d ever been, her luminiscent spirit somehow undimmed, somehow shining all the brighter for the dullness that surrounded her. Watching her grow up was like looking up at a firework show, Octavia burning just as fierce and bright and hot as a firecracker, every explosion of stunning light and colour more precious for the dark night that engulfed it. He couldn’t imagine anything that he wouldn’t give up for her, gladly.

And of course, there was Clarke. 

Had Aurora been anything like a normal mom, there was no way that Bellamy and Octavia would have been able to claim Clarke as their own. Any regular parent would surely have objected to the sudden addition of a third child to their home, even one so quiet and undemanding as Clarke, so much less trouble than she ought to be. As it was, Aurora came home one day to find Clarke already firmly adopted into the family, and despite her clear dislike of the girl - and the effort that she put into making her feel as uncomfortable as possible - she wisely didn’t push the subject, perhaps sensing that this was one argument she would definitely lose. 

It was more responsibility for Bellamy, having two little girls to take care of instead of one, but even back then there was something about Clarke’s gentle presence that soothed him, made the additional work seem less like a burden and more like a gift, to be entrusted with something so precious for his own. It was a source of fierce satisfaction and pride for the young boy, that this little rich girl with a seemingly perfect life needed something that only he and his sister could provide. 

(Bellamy didn’t believe that things happened for a reason. Too much had happened in his short life for him to believe that the world was anything other than a haphazard collection of messy and entirely random events, whatever force that governed the universe just as prone to mistakes as anyone else. But maybe, if he had, he might have thought that the reason he’d been given Aurora as a mother was that he’d also been given Octavia and Clarke as sisters.)

(He might have even thought that it was worth it.)

Even when Aurora was home, she was erratic and unpredictable. Her moods were numerous and ever-changing, lurching wildly from manic highs to despondent lows with no notice and only the tiniest of warning signs, invisible unless you knew exactly what to look for. Some days she seemed to be powered by a superhuman, almost frightening energy, getting up at 5am and cleaning the whole house from top to bottom, cooking three-course breakfasts that took an hour to eat and made them late for school. On other days Aurora would lay in bed for hours, curtains drawn tight across every window in the house, Bellamy and Octavia trapped in perpetual twilight, living off a diet of cereal and chips, tiptoeing around the house so as not to wake her. The hardest times, although also thankfully by far the rarest, were the days when she spilled over with an uncontrollable and indiscriminate anger, banging cupboard doors and crashing plates down onto the kitchen table, screaming down the phone at invisible callers, snapping at her children until they took refuge in Bellamy’s room, coming out only when their mom either left or fell asleep.

Aurora’s love was an unreliable foundation for their lives, constantly shifting ground under their feet. Her children were either the best thing that had ever happened to her or the worst: Octavia either an annoying nuisance or her darling baby girl; Bellamy her brave, big boy or a stuck-up, ungrateful brat. Bellamy found it easier and easier to emotionally distance himself from his mom, passively ignoring both her love and anger by turns, but O was too young to protect herself in the same way at first. She couldn’t understand why the mommy that had spent three hours playing dress-up with her yesterday couldn’t even look at her today, why the exact same behaviour might earn her laughter in the morning and a scolding in the afternoon. It took much longer for Octavia to give up on Aurora, but eventually she too began to withdraw, turning to Bellamy as her main source of love and care - a plant in a shadowed room, turning hopefully towards the sun.

Finally, there were the boyfriends. The constant yet inconsistent stream of men that wandered in and out of Aurora’s life and her home, staying for a day or a week or a month but always leaving in the end, no regard for who or what they left behind. Good with children, bad with children, indifferent to children - Bellamy hated them all regardless, both for themselves and the effect that they had on his mom, the way that they amplified and indulged all of Aurora’s worst impulses, shattering the illusion of stability and safety that he tried so hard to create for Octavia. Everything about the men was unsettling and disturbing: the god-like power that they seemed to wield over his mom and her moods; the strange noises that came from her room late at night; the debris that they left all over the house, empty bottles and scrumpled baggies that Bellamy made sure to clear away before his sister could see them. 

The way that they looked at him, like he was a threat.

The way that they looked at Octavia, like they were a threat.

From a young age, Bellamy had a keen sense of his own limitations, what he could and couldn’t control, what he could and couldn’t do to save Aurora from herself. Unable to protect his mom, caring little about protecting himself, he put all of his energy into protecting the girls in the only way he knew how - Octavia by keeping her close, and Clarke by keeping her away. More than once he’d even had to refuse to take Clarke home from school with them -his heart breaking as he walked away, holding firmly onto his sister’s hand, Octavia whining and struggling against his tight grip, wanting to run back to her friend. The sight of Clarke’s stricken face, the heartbreaking image of her wet eyes and wobbling lower lip seared itself permanently into his brain, replaying in his mind over and over at night as he held his sleeping sister close, ignoring the loud, angry noises that bled through the walls.

\- -

The day that Aurora left was neither a good day nor a bad one. Her latest boyfriend had broken up with her the week before, storming out in the middle of the night after a blazing argument, leaving behind a pile of dirty clothing and a stack of unmarked DVDs that Aurora shoved into a garbage bag while Octavia watched with wide eyes. His mom had been surprisingly calm in the aftermath, wan and pale but there, trying, doing laundry and making dinner, even managing to get up in the mornings and walk them both to school, trying to engage Bellamy in conversations about his classes. She seemed fragile, a little shaky, and clung to Octavia as one might cling to a pet or a doll, snuggling with her on the couch each night as they watched TV, mindlessly stroking her long, dark hair. O basked in the unexpected attention while Bellamy watched warily from the sidelines, not sure what to make of his mom’s uncharacteristically subdued behaviour, not trusting the unusual quiet that seemed to have settled over their home.

Aurora was even trying her best to be nice to Clarke, although the girl didn’t make it easy for her. Already burned one too many times by his mom’s deliberate attempts to exclude her from the home, and resentful that her best friend’s attention had been so thoroughly diverted, Clarke seemed just as suspicious of Aurora’s motives as Bellamy was. He’d had to hide a smile that evening when she rejected Aurora’s offer to sit on the couch with her and Octavia, marching past the pair to squeeze into the armchair next to him instead, her little blonde head nestled against his shoulder. 

“O, bed,” Bellamy said, walking back to the living room after seeing Clarke safely, if reluctantly, off with her mother. His words came out a little sharper than he intended, still on edge from his brief encounter with Abby, restraint worn dangerously thin from pretending that he couldn’t see the sneer on her face as she looked at him, that he didn’t notice how she refused to even step onto their ramshackle property, keeping safely to the air-conditioned confines of her luxury car. He’d long since stopped wondering what it said about Abby Griffin as a mother, that she was happy to let her young daughter spent half her time in a house that she’d never even seen the inside of. 

Bellamy couldn’t wait until Clarke was old enough to spend the whole night with them more often.

He sighed, exhausted. “Come on.”

Octavia groaned loudly and dramatically, pushing back the blanket, looking up in surprise when their mom put out a hand to stop her from standing. 

“She can stay up a little longer, can’t she?” Aurora said, smiling at Bellamy. She lovingly stroked her hand up and down Octavia’s arm, pulling her back into her side. “We’re so nice and cosy here.”

Bellamy paused, not sure what to do. Something in him baulked at the idea of leaving his sister alone with Aurora, but he didn’t want to start an argument either, not wanting to be the one to break the tentative peace of the past few days. 

“This is when we normally go to bed,” he said hesitantly, never sure what might set his mom off. 

“It’s Friday night. No school tomorrow,” Aurora replied brightly, squeezing O tightly to her in a one-armed hug. “She’s getting so big, I think that she can stay up a bit later just this once.”

“She needs to brush her teeth. She won’t do it on her own.”

“I’ll help her.”

Bellamy shifted uncomfortably, wanting to protest further but not able to come up with a reason beyond his own deep sense of foreboding. He looked to Octavia for help, but she refused to meet his eyes, chewing her lip and staring down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap. 

‘Go to bed, Bellamy,” his mom said firmly. “I’ll put Tavia to bed in a little while.”

Defeated, he’d had no choice but to go to bed, tossing and turning before eventually falling asleep to the muffled sounds of the TV from the living room.

And waking up to the sound of his sister screaming.

Leaping out of bed, almost skidding into the doorframe in his rush to get to Octavia, Bellamy followed the noise to the kitchen, his heart hammering in his throat. He stopped dead at the sight that greeted him - his little sister sprawled out across the linoleum floor, tiny hand clutched tightly to her chest, surrounded by blood and broken glass. 

He’d never seen so much blood. 

Bellamy pushed down the urge to throw up as he looked around, taking in the scene. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened. The chair pushed up against the counter, the open cabinet door, the shattered glass - he could see it all, playing out before him like a scene from a movie, complete with tense soundtrack.

_Octavia, wandering into the kitchen to get a drink of water, only to find that she can’t reach any of the glasses. Her face screwing up in concentration as she slowly drags a chair across the floor, pushing it up against the counter. Clambering up onto the chair as it wobbles dangerously beneath her, standing up on tiptoes and reaching out to open the cabinet door, smiling in triumph when her little hand clamps around the smooth glass. Suddenly losing her balance, the glass smashing as she tumbles hard to the floor, cutting her hand open and terrifying herself in the process, her mouth opening wide to scream as she sees all the blood around her._

_His mom, asleep on the couch the entire time._

“Tavia, baby, let me see, okay?”

His mom was crouched on the floor next to his sister, trying to calm her down, but every time she reached out Octavia only wailed harder, flailing and kicking out with her legs, not letting Aurora anywhere near her.

“Let mommy see, okay baby?”

“No!” Octavia let out a high pitched shriek as Aurora leant in towards her. “Bellamy! I want Bellamy!”

Aurora’s face was pale as she sat back on her heels, looking helplessly at Bellamy, hands fluttering uselessly in mid-air.

“Bellamy!” Octavia screamed, reaching out for him with bloody hands.

“Shh, O. I’m here.” Bellamy made his way over to his sister, carefully avoiding the broken glass, mindful of his bare feet. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Octavia was tiny for a seven year old, weighing almost nothing in his arms as he gently lifted her up and away from the glass, carrying her over to the kitchen table. She clung to him like a baby monkey, uninjured hand clutched tightly in his t-shirt, her wails turning to little hiccuping sobs, sweet and pitiful. He set her down on the edge of the table, carefully disentangling himself from her grip when she refused to let go.

“Shh,” he comforted her, pulling her hand away from her chest. “Let me look, alright?”

Bellamy gently examined the wound. Despite all the blood and gore, the cut wasn’t especially deep. It wouldn’t even need stitches, although it would probably be awkward to bandage up, slicing right across her palm from her thumb to the base of her pinky finger. Octavia was probably more shocked and scared than hurt - she’d always had a gift for histrionics.

The whole thing was clearly an accident. An easy mistake, a split-second of lapsed concentration, a freak occurance that could have just as easily happened if he’d been the one watching her.

Except Bellamy knew, deep down in his gut, that it would never have happened if he’d been the one watching her. 

He remembers, even then, being shocked at the extent of his anger. It filled his chest, white hot and almost agonising in its intensity, an excess of feeling too big for his young mind to understand or his skinny body to contain, hands shaking as he lightly prodded around the edges of Octavia’s cut, almost biting through his lip with the effort it took to keep himself in check. All his frustrations, his fears, his resentments - a lifetime’s worth of buried emotions rising to the surface all at once, coalescing together to form one sharp point of blistering fury like a twisting blade in his guts, left breathless and trembling with the pain, the strength of it. The overwhelming urge to let it loose on its intended target.

“Here.”

Aurora set the first-aid kit down on the table, smiling ruefully as Octavia loudly sniffled, shooting her a resentful glare. She must have gone to get the kit from the bathroom. Bellamy hadn’t even noticed her leaving the kitchen.

“Looks like you’ve got it all sorted,” she said awkwardly, the linoleum tile creaking under her feet as she shuffled her weight nervously from one bare foot to another, hands twisting in the overlong sleeves of her sweatshirt. “Guess you don’t need me, huh?”

Bellamy looked at his mom. Really looked at her, taking it all in as if he were seeing her for the first time, or at least for the first time clearly, his anger cooling into something cold and brutally detached, illuminating every detail and imperfection of the woman before him with no more emotion than the glow of the fluorescent light above them. He let his eyes travel over her slowly, absorbing it all: the greasy strands of her messy hair, escaping her ponytail to hang limply around her pallid face; the baggy, ill-fitting clothes, her cardigan still stained with this morning’s coffee; her ragged nails, long since bitten down to stubs; her blotchy, pale skin stained dark with shadows, tiny wrinkles just beginning to spiderweb out from around her thin mouth. The expression on her face, drawn tight and exhausted, cut through with pathetic hope as she waited for her own teenage son to reassure her, to comfort her. To absolve her from her sins.

He hated her.

“Yeah, I guess we don’t.”

The words, thickened and distorted by anger, didn't sound like him. They weren’t the words of a boy, but a man, one much older and wearier than Bellamy had any right to be, his voice somehow deeper than it had ever been before, vibrating through his chest with an almost animal like satisfaction.

Aurora flinched, taking a step back. 

Bellamy made short work of treating Octavia’s wound, cleaning out the cut with peroxide and dabbing on antiseptic cream before bandaging it up, the tips of her little fingers just poking out above the gauze. Not sure of the dosage, he gave Octavia half a paracetamol for the pain and a glass of milk to wash it down, standing over her as she drank it silently, her dark eyes flickering between him and Aurora, still hovering nearby.

“Good girl.” He used the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the tear tracks off Octavia’s face, giving her a quick smile, then hefted her up into her arms, exaggeratedly groaning to make her giggle. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Bellamy didn’t look back as he carried Octavia away, leaving Aurora to deal with the wreckage in the kitchen. For once, his mom could clean up her own damn mess. 

It was only after he tucked Octavia into his bed that he realised his t-shirt was ruined, spattered with her blood. Shuddering at the sour metallic smell, he took it off, flinging it away into the far corner of the room and hunting through his dresser for a clean top, pulling it on before he got into bed next to her. Normally he was desperate for as much privacy as he could get, only sharing a bed with his sister when one of his mom’s boyfriends was there, but tonight Bellamy knew that there would be no sleep for him without his sister safely wrapped up in his arms. Already half asleep, Octavia grumbled as he pulled her tightly into his chest, his body curving protectively around her.

Bellamy was just starting to drift off when he heard his bedroom door creak open, eyes opening to find yellow light slanting across the carpet from the hallway, the silhouette of his mother illuminated in the doorway. Tightening his arm around his sister, he waited for Aurora to say something, to step over the threshold, but she just stood there, hand on the doorknob, face cast in shadow, her expression hidden. He raised his chin and stared back at her defiantly, until eventually she turned around and left, pulling the door quietly closed behind her, leaving her children alone in the darkness.

\- -

Aurora didn’t leave right away, at least not physically. She hung around for a couple more months, but it was obvious to Bellamy that she was just going through the motions, her thoughts somewhere else entirely, distant in a way that she’d never been before, even at her very worst. Like a television screen slowly succumbing to static, she grew fainter and fainter, her voice blurring, her outline fuzzy and indistinct. No matter which way you looked at her, it seemed as if you were seeing her out of the corner of your eye, a flickering shadow of a person, there one moment and gone the next. 

Every so often Bellamy would catch her staring at him, a look of blank confusion on her face, brow rumpled with mild consternation, as if he were a stranger, an unfamiliar face that she couldn’t quite place. Or as if she’d walked into someone else’s life, someone else’s house, and couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there.

It was almost a relief when she finally walked out of the door, her body finally catching up to her mind.

She left money on the kitchen table when she left; a thin sheaf of bills curled neatly into an empty glass. Three weeks later, the envelopes started. No note, no return address, just money, the same amount on the same day each month. It was enough, if not quite _enough_. Enough to bridge the gap from fourteen to full-time work, enough to buy food and clothes and heat for a scrawny teenage boy and his even scrawnier sister (especially if the boy skipped lunch every other day). And once Clarke’s mom started sending money along with her daughter each week, Bellamy could almost breathe easily again. 

There were difficult months. Once the envelope didn’t arrive, stolen or lost or simply never sent, and Bellamy walked around with a clawing pit of dread in his stomach until the next month rolled around and a new envelope arrived, like nothing had ever happened. There was the month that the heating stopped working, the month that they both needed new shoes at the same time, the month that Octavia broke down in tears because she couldn’t go on the school trip with all her friends. Bellamy became adept at finding ways to save money without his sister finding out how poor they really were: washing clothes with only half the recommended amount of detergent to stretch out the box, carefully splitting out milk into two containers so that he could water it down; bulking out recipes with whatever vegetables he could find in the dented cans section. 

Still, they made it, all the way through to when Bellamy turned 18. There was an extra hundred dollars in the envelope that month, and he got Chinese takeout for the three of them, Octavia insisting that he snap open all the cookies so that she could look through and pick the fortune that she wanted. 

That was the last envelope. 

Aurora’s message was clear. The withdrawal of financial support as soon as Bellamy became an adult, despite the fact that Octavia was in middle school, just a confirmation of what he’d always known. What she’d only realised that night.

That Octavia was his.

\- -

“Clarke?”

Bellamy frowns into the washer as he spots a flash of red in amongst the bedsheets, a scrap of lace adrift in a sea of cotton. He reaches in and fishes it out - one of Clarke’s new bras, accidentally bundled in with the white sheets, 30 seconds and one boil wash away from disaster. So much for Clarke sorting the laundry. He should be annoyed, probably would be if he had the energy for it, but as it is he just stands in the laundry room, running his thumb over the offending item, rough skin snagging on the delicate fabric, remembering the last time he saw it, in much more pleasant circumstances.

Bellamy ignores his hardening cock, putting the bra safely back into the laundry basket before he measures out the detergent and the fabric softener for the machine, setting the wash programme. It’s an old machine, and it needs a kick to start, reluctantly groaning to life while he watches it to make sure that it’s not going to explode or spit gallons of water over the laundry room. 

“Clarke?” he repeats, raising his voice, hoisting the basket of clean laundry up onto his hip as he walks through the kitchen and into the living room. “I think you forgot something, princess.”

He comes to a stop in the doorway when he sees her, fast asleep in the armchair with her head slouched against the back of the chair, textbook open in her lap, a bright pink highlighter still held loosely in one hand. Clarke’s face is slack, her breath deep and slow, and she doesn’t stir, not even when he sets the basket down on the kitchen table and cautiously approaches. She’s completely out.

Bellamy’s heart aches just looking at her, a dull pain in his chest as he takes in the grey smudges under her eyes, the paleness of her skin, her hair scraped into a messy knot on top of her head. He’s not surprised that she’s fallen asleep. She looks just as exhausted as he feels, both of them worn down by the stress of leading this double life, the strain of keeping such a big secret from Octavia, the constant fear of discovery. Clarke waits up every night until O finally falls asleep - later and later each night, it seems - before coming to his room, getting up just before dawn to sneak back into her bed, and it’s not as if either of them allow the other to get much sleep in between. 

He remembers a nature documentary he watched once, some lazy weekday morning a few years ago, about deer in rut. Massive creatures, blazes of glossy fur and massive antlers, literally run ragged by the desperate urge to fight and fuck, losing so much weight that by the end of the season they were reduced to nothing more than skin and bone, kept going only by the relentless pulse of their basest urges, the vital need to reproduce. Male deer, the elderly British narrator had explained, can lose up to a fifth of their body weight during rut, so depleted by the end of the season that they sleep for whole days, too tired to even move. 

Bellamy can sympathise. 

He’s lost count of the times that he’s told himself to get a grip, to control himself, to keep his damn hands off Clarke. Reality hits him anew each morning, dragging his weary body to the bathroom after the girls leave for school, white-knuckling the sink and staring at his face in the tarnished mirror. He barely recognises the man that looks back at him, the angles of his face newly shadowed by fatigue and sharpened by need, reshaped by the desire that holds him in its unrelenting grip, clawing at his insides. The dark bruises under his eyes, the truth of their situation, equally stark in the unforgiving morning light. Bellamy gets in the shower, eyes closed as he turns his face up into the scalding spray, jaw clenched and chest tight as he washes her touch off his skin, resolve hardening. They can’t go on like this.

But it doesn’t matter what he tells himself, gritted-teeth promises and whispered prayers witnessed only by slick bathroom tiles. He only has to look at Clarke to want her, swept away by desire, all of his best intentions amounting to nothing, just as meaningless as his mom’s old stack of white AA chips, so many that he and O used to play with them like pogs. Even now, watching Clarke sleep, practically passed out in the battered armchair, his own body about to drop from exhaustion, he’s torn between tucking her in and waking her up, craving her in a way that he lacks the words to articulate, a bone-deep need that defies reason or logic. He doesn’t want to fuck her. He wants to _have_ her, consume her, breathe her in deep and feel her coursing through his bloodstream, arteries carrying something far more vital and necessary than oxygen to his desperate and damaged heart.

Like last night. Bellamy knows that he should have let her rest, should have just let her be, her soft body snuggled deep under the covers of his bed, curled tight around herself like a secret. But it wasn’t enough, not when he knew that she’d be even sweeter awake, and she _was_ , so sweet and so good for him, just like she always is. The indignant little squeaking noise she’d made when he woke her up, the arch of her neck as she sleepily bared her throat for his mouth, how easily she’d given herself over to him, no trace of hesitation in her surrender. Her perfect cunt, tight around his fingers and melting on his tongue, still fluttering from her orgasm when he thrust into her, almost biting through his lip with the effort that it took not to come immediately. The way that she’d reached for him when she came, clinging to him like she couldn’t understand the enormity of what she was feeling, her overwhelmed tears damp on his skin. 

Too young to understand what a gift she’s giving him. Too trusting to realise that it’s a gift he doesn’t deserve.

There was a point, once, maybe, when he could have given Clarke up. Months spent thinking about her, dreaming of her, his hand wrapped around his cock with her silent name on his tongue - but still not too late, either for him or for her. Back when his love had still been a question, a shimmering _what if_ lit up by the glittering light of possibility _._ Bellamy could have let her go, could have distracted himself with any one of the dozen different girls that throw themselves at him each night at the bar, could have let his fantasies age away into memory and dust.

Now, it’s different. 

Clarke deserves far better than him. She’s so achingly young, so inexperienced, and she has no idea what kind of man he is, the scale and depth of his desire for her, the things he has done and would do to have her. She deserves better than to be crushed under the weight of his suffocating love, sacrificed to the bottomless pit of endless need that lurks inside him. That one afternoon on the couch is the closest that he’s ever come to revealing the extent of his need for her, pushed to the very limits of his control by the prospect of losing Octavia, needing the reassurance of Clarke’s love to ease the tearing pain of separation, the gaping hole opening up in his chest. It’s not fair to put any of this on her, he knows. What understanding could a fifteen year-old girl have of _forever_?

But how can Bellamy give her up now? Now, when his love for her is no longer a question, but an answer - the only answer he has for any of this, the only reason that could possibly justify any of this mess that they’ve created? How can he let her go, now that he knows exactly what it feels like to be with her?

How can he let her go, now that he knows exactly how much it would hurt to be without her?

\- -

“What’s going on?”

Startled, Bellamy looks up to see Octavia leaning against the doorframe, arms casually crossed against her chest, eyebrow arched as she watches him watch Clarke. Something about the sharpness of her gaze, the knowing glint in her keen eyes makes him feel exposed, just as caught out and guilty as if she’d just walked in on them fucking. He swallows, mouth dry, wondering what emotions she’d seen playing out across his unguarded face.

O raises her eyebrows when he doesn’t answer. Straightening up, pushing herself away from the door, she wanders over to where Clarke is lying in the chair, oblivious in sleep. 

“Careful, she’s sleeping,” Bellamy says uselessly, finally finding his voice. He shifts on his feet, hands twisting at his side, strangely uncomfortable as he watches his sister slowly approach Clarke, crouching down next to her chair. 

“I can see that,” Octavia replies, but there’s no real venom behind it, her voice unusually quiet. She doesn’t even look at him, all her attention focused on her Clarke, an unreadable expression on her face. “She’s so tired recently. I don’t think she’s been sleeping.”

Her voice trails off absently, distracted as she stretches a hand up towards Clarke. It takes all of Bellamy’s restraint not to move forward and put himself between them, some nameless fear crawling up his spine as he watches Octavia reach for her. He flinches as she makes contact, not entirely sure what he’s expecting, relaxing only slightly when she only brushes a few stray hairs back from Clarke’s forehead, carefully smoothing her hand over her hair. Bellamy’s never seen her so gentle - didn’t know that his ferocious, rough little sister was capable of it, something almost like tenderness in the way that she touches Clarke as she sleeps. 

Is that what it looks like when she touches him? Has Bellamy ever looked so innocent, so vulnerable under his sister’s hand?

Has he ever been that young? He’s not sure.

Bellamy holds his breath as Clarke sleepily murmurs, brow furrowing, but she doesn’t wake up.

Not for the first time, Bellamy wonders exactly what’s going on between the girls. He’s never quite been able to figure out the physics of their orbit around each other, the invisible forces that push them together and pull them apart, a delicate dance that seems like chaos to the casual observer, intricate movements that only make sense from the inside. Teenage girls are strange, otherworldly creatures, none more than these two, so close that he can’t tell if they’re trying to become one person or eat each other alive. Separately, he knows each of them like the back of his hand. Together, they’re a mystery. 

Still, even he knows enough to realise that something has changed between them. There’s an edge to their interactions that’s never been there before, even during the very worst of their childhood arguments, a new sharpness to Octavia’s voice, Clarke subdued and withdrawn when they’re all together. Something in their relationship is tilted dangerously off balance, the fragile ecosystem of their home upset, like how the difference of only a few degrees in a planet’s rotation is enough to turn whole rainforests to empty ice, oceans to barren desert. Just another casualty of that night, crashing through all of their lives like a meteor, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. 

Bellamy remembers the look on Clarke’s face when she came home and found him and Octavia on the couch - the shock that had rapidly turned to horror and then anger, the way that she’d clumsily tried to protect him from his own sister, his fierce little kitten turned bodyguard. Of course she’d had nothing to worry about - somehow, since he started sleeping with Clarke he’s always managed to find his way safely to his own bed, despite Octavia’s best efforts. But there was no way to tell her that, not without revealing himself, and the hostility between the girls had been clear, fighting over their big brother in a way that was both disturbingly flattering and worrying at the same time.

“What do you think, Bell?” Octavia asks, turning round to look at him, hand still on Clarke’s face. “Do you know why she’s not sleeping?”

Her voice is still quiet, almost alarmingly calm, but her eyes meet his like a challenge across the room, a stubborn set to her jaw that he knows mirrors his own. Bellamy shrugs, keeping his face deliberately blank. 

Shaking her head, Octavia returns her attention to Clarke. Bellamy watches silently as she removes the textbook from Clarke’s lap and puts it safely on the coffee table, then pulls the highlighter out of her hand and caps it, placing it neatly on top. She stands, reaching for the blanket on the couch, and Bellamy steps forward to help but he’s too late, stuck hovering redundantly nearby as she drapes it over Clarke.

“O - ”

She ignores him, walking straight past him into the kitchen.

Bellamy follows and quietly shuts the door behind him, taking a deep breath and mentally preparing himself before turning around. 

“Octavia.”

She’s already got an attitude, hip cocked and arms crossed, mouth pursed. For the first time, Bellamy really registers what she’s wearing - high waisted jeans, so tight that she might as well be naked, moulding to her body and giving her hips that she’s never had before, a neat little curve that draws the eye up to her tiny waist. A black lace vest top - no, a _crop top_ , he remembers the girls explaining to him once - barely covering her chest, perky little tits unrestrained under the fabric. Bellamy feels like he should be arrested just for looking at her. 

All of his composure goes straight out of the window, any hope they had of a civilised conversation immediately lost with his next words, regretted as soon as he opens his mouth. 

“What are you wearing?”

Octavia scowls, drumming her fingers against her folded arms, rolling her eyes like she can’t believe her ears.

“ _Really_?” she hisses, mindful not to wake Clarke despite her irritation. “Haven’t we already had this conversation?”

Bellamy knows exactly what he sounds like. A year ago, a month ago, he couldn’t have imagined having this argument with his little sister even once, let alone multiple times, watching himself turn into exactly the kind of man he’s always hated. Logically, he knows that what Octavia wears is none of his business, that she should be able to wear whatever the fuck she wants, but she’s _fifteen_ , still a baby, his baby, and shouldn’t that count for something? Even the suggestion of Steve seeing her like this is enraging, the certainty of his grubby hands all over her body enough to drive him insane.

“I’m not letting you out with Steve dressed like that,” Bellamy barrels on, inwardly cringing but unable to stop himself. “Put something else on.”

“Who says I’m going out with Steve?” Octavia’s voice rises in pitch, indignant, before she catches herself and lowers the volume, continuing in a furious whisper. “I can dress however I want. You’re the one who taught me that, remember?”

She’s such a fucking smartass. Bellamy never should have given in to her the first time, never should have let her out with Steve in the first place. Should have walked straight up to that loser right there in the supermarket the first time he saw him sniffing around Octavia, shoved him up against the shelves and warned him to keep his hands off his baby sister. 

“Okay, so where are you going?” Bellamy raises his eyebrows, spreading his hands wide, gesturing for her to continue. “Go on. Illuminate me.”

“Fine.” Octavia almost spits out the word, cornered but not backing down. “I _am_ going out with Steve. But I don’t see why that makes any difference - ”

“O. You’re _fifteen_. I can’t let you out with your - ” Bellamy stops, unable to bring himself to say ‘boyfriend’, even the idea of it bitter in his mouth. He sighs. “Just. Put something else on.”

“Bell - ”

“Cover up, or you’re not going anywhere.”

Octavia doesn’t move at first, disbelieving. Only when it becomes plain that he’s not kidding does she angrily spin around, digging through the laundry basket on the kitchen table, pulling out one of his sweatshirts. 

“Fine,” she huffs, pulling it over her head, voice muffled through the thick fabric, face livid with anger when she emerges again. “You want me covered up? I’m covered up.”

The hem of the sweatshirt drops almost to her knees, sleeves coming down past her hands, comically too big on her. She stares at him, defiant, daring him to say something. They both know that she’s taking it off the second that she leaves the house. 

They both know that it’s not really about the sweatshirt, even if neither of them can say it.

It’s been weeks since Bellamy started seeing Clarke, weeks since he’s let O touch him. Weeks of steadily building tension with no means for release, Octavia’s mood declining further every day, sniping at him every chance she gets, taking any opportunity to push his buttons, just daring him to do _something_. Bellamy can’t tell how much of her anger is down to the sudden withdrawal of her favourite toy, how much is just the usual teenage rebellion, a natural testing of boundaries as she starts to grow up. He feels paralysed, no idea where to begin to try and repair their relationship, get it back to something even approaching normal. 

_How do you start?To fix something that you can’t even acknowledge is broken?_

O’s phone beeps and she immediately scrambles for it, wrestling with the oversized sweatshirt to get to her pocket. 

“Steve’s here,” she announces happily.

“Great,” Bellamy replies, voice flat. 

“Whatever.” Octavia rolls her eyes and heads for the back door. She opens it, stepping out onto the back porch, but then she pauses, turning back.

Bellamy’s heart lifts hopefully.

“Fuck you, Bell,” she says quietly, and then she’s gone. 

Bellamy doesn’t move, frozen in place as the door slams shut behind her. 

\- -

A loud bang startles Clarke awake, bolting upright in the armchair. She’s alone in the living room, covered over with a blanket, her textbook and highlighter arranged neatly on the table in front of her. 

For one empty, liberating moment, she doesn’t remember a thing. She’s just a normal fifteen year-old girl waking up from a nap on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the need to finish her homework overtaken by the natural urge to sleep, eyelids delicately fluttering shut as her grip on her pen slowly loosened. Looking around blankly at her surroundings, details still blurry, Clarke takes what feels like her first easy breath in weeks, stale air made crisp and new with the luxurious pleasure of forgetting. 

Then, gradually, she remembers. Who she is, where she is, exactly why she’s so tired in the middle of the day. A sweet ache blooms between her legs when she shifts, a familiar tightness settling back into her chest like an old and unwelcome friend. Her gaze falls on the tattered couch in front of her, the details snapping back into sharp focus at the exact same second that the memories flood in, a disorientating and exhausting kaleidoscope of guilt and desire, each facet reflecting the light of another glittering, shattering secret. 

Looking down, Clarke watches as goosebumps slowly rise across her skin. 

She stands up, shaking the unnerving feeling off, raising her hands up above her head as she stretches out her cramped muscles. Her neck aches from being jammed up against the back of the chair, and she’s got the dull headache that she always gets when she naps in the middle of the day, her body clock feebly protesting any change in routine. She folds the blanket and lays it neatly over the back of the couch. 

The door to the kitchen is never shut, but it is now, the rattling sound of the old washer muffled to an almost pleasant background hum. Still yawning, she pushes it open.

Bellamy’s standing in the middle of the kitchen facing the back door, his back to her. It doesn’t matter - she doesn’t need to see his face to know that he’s upset about something, head low and shoulders slumped, misery written into every collapsing line of his big body. 

Her heart kicks up a beat, anxiety curdling in her stomach, like it does every time that he gets upset or angry, constantly fighting against the fear that he’s found out about that night, that everything she has is about to come crashing down around her. 

“Hey,” she says, tentative. “Sorry for falling asleep.”

Bellamy’s head snaps up, startled. Clarke feels like an intruder, like she’s walked in on something intensely private, not meant for her eyes. Her hand twitches on the doorknob.

But then he turns, and he’s smiling at her, that broad wonderful smile, even if it doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Hey princess.” He winces theatrically, his smile twisting. “We didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Bellamy spreads his arms wide, and Clarke lets go of the door, going to him gladly. She snuggles against him as he wraps her up in a hug, winding her own arms around his waist.

“We?” she asks, looking up at him.

“Uh huh.” He won’t meet her eyes, staring off into the distance even as he squeezes his arms tighter around her. “O’s just gone out.” He nods in the direction of the back door.

Ah. That explains it. 

Bellamy and Octavia have always squabbled, riling each other up like only siblings can, old arguments like well worn grooves that they shift in and out of effortlessly, their own secret language of ancient slights and grudges almost unintelligible to an outsider. It’s been the same ever since Clarke’s known them, just part of the background noise of the Blake house, arguments flaring up and calming down several times a day, no real heat behind them. 

But now when they fight it’s different. Nothing held back, every word a weapon, every blow precisely aimed to inflict maximum damage. Brother and sister can barely be in the same room for more than a minute without something sparking an argument - the smallest reference to Steve is enough to get Bellamy clenching his jaw, and Octavia doesn’t even need an excuse to get angry, exploding into a rage at the slightest provocation. She’s annoyed with Clarke, sure, but all her real venom is reserved for her beloved big brother. 

“Out with Steve?” Clarke prods, keeping her voice light.

“How’d you guess?” His throat tightens as he swallows painfully, giving the lie to his teasing tone. 

Clarke lays her head back down against Bellamy’s chest, closing her eyes.

She wishes that she were bigger, that their positions were reversed. Wishes that she could pull him into her arms and hold him close, reassure him that his sister isn’t really angry with him, or at least not in the way that he thinks. That his sister’s rage doesn’t stem from a lack of love, but an excess of it. That despite all of Octavia’s efforts to push Bellamy away, the true cause of her resentment is her need to be closer to him, all of her attempts thwarted by Clarke, frustrated desire spilling out into bitterness and bile.

Just once, Clarke wants to have a conversation with Bellamy that doesn’t involve a lie. To open her mouth carelessly, without thinking, her words as open and honest as her heart.

Instead, Clarke rubs her nose against his chest, pressing a silent kiss to his skin through the fabric. He doesn’t feel it. 

She opens her eyes again as Bellamy steps back. He rests his hands on her shoulders, staring down at her seriously. Then all of a sudden he’s tickling her, clever fingers sneaking under her arms in some quick, impossible move. Clarke squeals, caught off guard, trying to twist her body away but somehow falling against him instead, caught fast as he tickles her mercilessly. 

“Stop!” she gasps out breathlessly between bouts of laughter, rising up on her tiptoes in a futile attempt at escape.“Bell!”

Bellamy laughs too, deep and warm, the sound filling the room.

Eventually he relents, but it’s only so that he can lean down and mouth along her neck, hands curving round to cup her breasts through her top. Clarke’s breathless giggles fade into breathless moans, her back against his chest, head tipping back.

“Well, I know what I want to eat,” Bellamy says, nipping at her skin as she gasps. “But what do you want for lunch?”

_Fuck._

Clarke straightens up, Bellamy’s mouth and hands falling away from her body.

“Actually, I have to go,” she says, turning around to face him.

“Go?” 

Bellamy tries to hide it, but she sees the disappointment in his eyes, a little pang of guilt pulling at her chest.

“I need to go to my mom’s and grab some stuff, get some clothes. I can’t keep wearing the same three outfits over and over.”

“So wear my clothes.” Bellamy pinches her cheek gently, grinning. “You look so cute in them.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

\- -

Clarke pushes open the front door of her mom’s house, humming along to the music playing through her headphones. 

She doesn’t bother calling out to see if anyone’s home. Her visit is carefully timed - too late for the cleaner, too early for Abby - and she already knows that the only response waiting for her is the lonely echo of her own voice, dismally reverberating through the empty rooms. Not that it really matters. Every sterile white wall; every gleaming, empty surface; every piece of expensive and uncomfortable furniture speaks to a type of absence that runs far deeper than mere physical presence, an abandonment more profound and painful than the death of her father. Even if her mom was here, Clarke would still be alone.

Clarke has always hated this house. Even spending a few minutes here is enough to feel her chest constricting, a chill settling deep into her bones where she knows it’ll linger for hours, little shivers running through her body like aftershocks. She tries to be here as little as possible, one or two nights a week at the very most, the absolute minimum required to reassure Abby that her daughter is, in fact, still alive and breathing, no need for intervention. For years, Clarke and her mother have communicated solely through the language of remains - unmade beds and full laundry baskets, dirty dishes and toothpaste smears - mementoes of continued survival like messages in bottles set to drift on a frigid sea. Until Marcus came along, jolting back to life whatever still passes for maternal instincts in Abby, actual conversations with her mom were few and far between.

Today, however, something’s different. Clarke pulls out her headphones, tinny music blaring out into the hallway as she stands in place, head tilted slightly to one side, trying to work out what’s changed. 

The air is richer, warmer. Perfumed, but not harshly so, the soft muted notes of a scented candle rather than the clinging artificial scent of an air freshener. Underneath, Clarke can just make out the lingering smells of cooking, the not entirely unpleasant aroma of garlic and coriander mixed in with other herbs that she can’t identify, but which make her stomach grumble with hunger nonetheless.

Looking around, she notices other changes too. There’s a pair of men’s boots tucked into the corner by the front door, the expensive leather battered and creased, laces pooling untidily on the slate grey floor. An overcoat, too large to be her mother’s, slung casually over the stair rail. A stack of unopened letters sits on the entry table, messily propped up against a glass vase with a large arrangement of fat, pink peonies. Reaching over to stroke the petals, Clarke is startled to realise that the flowers are real, not silk. 

She walks along the hallway into the kitchen, fighting the growing feeling that she’s wandered into someone else’s house. Normally her mom keeps the kitchen counters clear, each appliance tucked away neatly into its assigned cupboard (‘dust traps’, she calls them, nose wrinkled with disgust). Now, however, a gleaming silver coffee machine sits pride of place on the counter next to the refridgerator, heading up a line of other, equally gleaming, appliances -food processor, toaster, mixer. Dishes sit in the sink, rinsed but not yet washed. There’s even clutter on the kitchen table - real, honest to god clutter - a newspaper, read and hastily refolded, an empty coffee mug, a notebook with a pen hooked into the spiral spine. 

No, Clarke doesn’t feel like she’s walked into someone else’s house. It’s far stranger than that.

She feels like, for the first time, she’s walked into a _home_. 

“Clarke?”

Heart pounding in her chest, Clarke spins, only to come face to face with Marcus at the back door.

It looks like he’s just got back from a run. He’s breathing heavily, his tanned skin glowing with sweat, little tendrils of damp hair curling around his forehead and at the nape of his neck. His shorts are short, shorter than any pair Bellamy owns, riding high to show off his leanly muscled legs, dusted with fine dark blonde hair. Clarke tries to avert her eyes, embarassed, only to find her eyes instantly drawn to Marcus’ equally muscled arms, bare skin seemingly everywhere she looks.

She can smell him. The clean, masculine scent of fresh sweat that she normally associates with Bellamy, those breathless moments after making love, damp skin pressed close and sticky under the covers, her head resting on the solid plane of his chest. It’s a disconcerting level of intimacy to have with Marcus, who is still mostly a stranger to her.

Marcus steps forward into the kitchen, closing the back door quietly behind him.

“Clarke?” he repeats, looking just as stunned as she feels. He sets his aluminium water bottle on the counter with a soft clink. “What are you doing here?”

Clarke stutters, taking a step back, cheeks flaring red with mortification. “I- I can go. I’ll go.”

“Wait.” Marcus holds up his hands. “Please, wait. That isn’t at all what I meant.”

“No.” She shakes her head, already turning to leave. “I should leave. I should’ve checked first…it’s my fault - ”

“Clarke.”

She’s not sure why she stops, already halfway out of the kitchen, the front door in sight, escape only a few steps away. But there’s something calming and reassuring in Marcus’ voice, a gentle authority that she can’t help but respond to, even as some small part of her is irritated by it, annoyed at her own reaction.

She turns back.

“Clarke.” Marcus reaches for her hand, clasping it firmly between his warm palms. There’s a thick black strap around his left wrist - a FitBit, Clarke guesses, or some other expensive fitness monitoring gadget. He smiles, his gaze soft on her, the delicate skin around his eyes crinkling. “This is a lovely surprise. I mean it. Your mother and i have been waiting to hear from you. We were starting to get worried.”

Clarke tenses. Of course, she’s already prepared her excuses, plausible reasons why she hadn’t responded to ay of Abby’s increasingly frantic calls or messages. But those excuses were meant for Abby. Polite, paper thin lies designed to placate a mother whose feelings for her daughter rarely extend past a vague sense of mild disappointment, sparing them both the awkwardness of having to acknowledge the distance in the relationship, how little they really know each other. Clarke hadn’t expected to have to use those excuses on Marcus. She hadn’t expected this - being cornered in the kitchen by her mom’s strange, overly sincere boyfriend, her hand held tightly between two of his, his kind eyes intent on hers. 

“Oh.” His broad smile flickers and dims, turning rueful. “Did I put my foot in it again?”

Clarke clears her throat, pulling her hand away from his. “No, it’s okay.”

“Look, can you wait? Wait here, let me jump in the shower quickly, and then we can talk?”

“I’m not sure,” she says slowly, caught off guard by the request. “I really should get back.”

“Please?” Marcus’ face lights up with what she can almost believe is real enthusiasm to spend time with his partner’s teenage daughter. “I’ll be ten minutes, I promise.”

Clarke is surprised to find herself actually considering the offer. She likes Marcus, as much as she could ever like anyone that’s dating her mom, and it’s refreshing to talk to someone that doesn’t already know everything about her, to hold a conversation that doesn’t struggle for air under the weight of a decade of history. Abby definitely wouldn’t approve of them spending time together, which is almost all the reason that Clarke needs to say yes. Still, Bellamy is waiting for her at home, and there’s something odd about the idea of choosing to spend time with Marcus, just the two of them alone. She should leave. 

Just then, however, her stomach growls. Loudly. 

Marcus laughs, not unkindly. “Come on, I’ll make you lunch.”

It sounds so simple. _Nice_ , even. Just an easy conversation between two people that are still new to each other, their relationship still too shallow to harbour any lies or betrayals, no secrets lurking just beneath the surface to drag them both under. 

_Fuck it._

“Okay.”

“Really?” Marcus grins, and Clarke smiles back despite herself, his joy infectious. He looks so much younger when he smiles. 

“Really.”

“Great. I’ll be back soon.” He waggles his finger at her playfully, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He bounds past her, practically sprinting up the stairs, and it’s not even thirty seconds later when Clarke hears the shower turn on. 

She stands awkwardly in the kitchen, hugging her arms around herself. It’s not that she’s nervous about being here alone with Marcus, not the way that she’d be nervous about being alone with her mom, but something niggles in the corner of her mind, something disconcerting about how hard he’s trying to get her to like him. Clarke wonders exactly what Abby has told him about her difficult teenage daughter that he’s so obvious in his attempts to win her over, as if he thinks that she’s already made her mind up to hate him. 

Sitting down at the kitchen table, careful not to touch anything, she pulls out her phone to check her messages. Only a few weeks ago, her screen would have been lit up with a chain of notifications from Octavia - scraps of half finished thoughts, pictures of grumpy animals, strings of inscrutable emojis with more than a few suggestively shaped vegetables. Their messages had been just another strand of their shared stream of consciousness, minds in perfect sync even when they were physically apart. Now, the last message from her best friend is from a week ago, a tersely worded reminder to wait for her after gym so that they could walk home together. 

Clarke swipes into her conversation with Bellamy to let him know that she’ll be home later than she thought. Part of her hesitates to mention Marcus, worried about what Bell will say, remembering his irritated reaction when he thought that she had a crush on her new step-dad. But then she rolls her eyes, telling herself to get it together. Bellamy may be protective, but he’s nothing like some of the boyfriends that other girls mention at school, demanding to know where she is at all hours, banning her from talking to other guys. There’s no need for any more secrets between them. 

As expected, when she tells Bell that she’s having lunch with Marcus, his response is short but sweet.

<<Ok princess, see you later xx>>

She smiles, eyes lingering on the double xx.

“Good news?”

“Huh?” Clarke looks up to find Marcus standing over her. Thankfully, he’s now fully clothed in a white t-shirt and a pair of linen trousers, although his hair is still dripping wet from the shower - literally, dripping water over his top and the kitchen floor. His feet are bare.

“That wasn’t ten minutes,” she says to distract him, sitting up to casually slide her phone into her back pocket.

“You caught me.” He walks over to the refridgerator, opening the door and peering inside. “Guess I was hungrier than I thought. How do you feel about BLTs?”

“Good?”

“Thank god.” Marcus starts grabbing ingredients from the fridge, setting the lettuce and tomatoes on the kitchen island. Clarke wanders over to join him, fascinated to see that he’s got actual, real bacon - she didn’t think that Abby allowed processed meat products in the house. “I’ll be honest, the other option was takeout. You okay to chop?”

Clarke nods. Luckily he saves her the embarrassment of admitting that she doesn’t know where anything’s kept in her own kitchen, getting a knife out from the drawer next to the sink and passing it carefully over to her, handle first. She watches him clatter around the kitchen, getting out bread and setting the grill to heat.

“I’m surprised,” she summons up the courage to joke. “I didn’t know that mom allowed food in the kitchen.”

To her relief, Marcus chuckles, glancing over at her. “I’m trying to get your mother to take better care of herself. I’ll admit…it’s a slow process.”

Clarke bites her lip, and starts slicing one of the tomatoes.

She was right. It is easy being with Marcus, conversation flowing steadily as they make lunch, continuing without a hitch as they sit down to eat. Just like before, he seems to want to keep the focus on Clarke, asking about school and her classes, following up on their previous conversation about her art. She’s surprised how much he remembers, even down to the details of the specific projects that she’d been working on, asking about her progress with what feels like genuine interest. 

And the sandwich is amazing, although Clarke notes guiltily that it probably costs more than the Blakes’ entire weekly household food budget, every ingredient some combination of organic or wholegrain or GMO free.

“So you want to major in art at college?” Marcus asks, wiping his hands off on a napkin and leaning back. “Have you started looking at schools yet?”

Clarke looks down at her half-eaten BLT. College still feels very far away, more of an abstract concept than a real thing that she needs to start planning for. Even the thought of being away from Octavia and Bellamy for that long feels…impossible. “I don’t think that Abby would be very happy paying for that.”

Marcus frowns at her use of her mom’s name. “You don’t know that, Clarke. Your mother just wants you to be happy.”

She shrugs, not looking at him, knowing that she looks like a typical sulky teenager, telling herself that she doesnt care.

The moment hangs between them, stretching out into an uncomfortable silence until Marcus suddenly straightens up, slapping his hands down on his thighs like he’s just come to a decision about something. 

“Are you finished?” He looks at her plate. “Never mind, bring it with you, come on.”

He gets to his feet, barely waiting for Clarke to stand up too before he strides off into the dining room, leaving her no choice but to pick up her plate and clumsily rush after him. 

She’s never met anyone like Marcus. He’s so full of energy that she can practically feel it crackling off him, mind and body moving so swiftly and with such impressive focus that he makes _her_ feel like the old one, for all that he’s more than twice her age. 

If the rest of the house looks like it’s slowly awakening after a long, bleak winter, the dining room appears to still be in the process of being dragged back to life, kicking and screaming. It’s a mess - crammed full of flattened cardboard and discarded packaging, the long dining table only just visible underneath mounds of styrofoam packing peanuts and wrinkled brown paper, tattered remnants of bubble wrap and packing tape littering the expensive carpet. The dining room chairs are stacked untidily in the corner, most of the available floorspace taken up by a series of flat cardboard boxes propped up against the table, each one marked with a bright red FRAGILE sticker.

Clarke can see why Marcus insisted that they eat lunch in the kitchen.

“It must be fate that you came by today,” he says, rummaging around in the mess on the table, retrieving a box cutter from underneath a large pile of bubble wrap. Stepping back, he examines the unopened boxes briefly before selecting one of the largest, using the sharp blade to neatly slice through the tape that holds it shut. “Because I could definitely use your help with these.”

She cranes her neck, watching curiously as Marcus pulls the box open, setting the box cutter back on the table before leaning over to fiddle with some kind of fastening. Whatever the box contains, it must be important - important enough for him to suddenly decide to drag her in here, sandwich still in hand. She can’t imagine what could be so urgent.

She gets her answer when he hefts it out of the box, grunting slightly at the weight.

“What do you think?”

Her mouth falls open as she stares at the painting. It’s a portrait of a woman, although _portrait_ seems far too sedate a word to describe the swirling mass of clashing, warring colours, the anger that leaps off the canvas and straight into Clarke’s chest, her breath catching as she stares into a pair of dark, defiant eyes. Whoever the woman is, she’s both beautiful and terrifying, the jagged black line of her strong jaw fighting against the unexpected scarlet softness of her mouth, the wild curls of her hair tumbling down to frame a high, tightly furrowed brow. It’s raw emotion captured in paint, slamming into Clarke like a physical blow. 

“Wow,” she breathes. She wants to touch it. Wants to lay her palm flat across the paint and feel the passion burning just below the surface, a moment of impossible connection with an artist that she’s never met, time and space rendered meaningless by nothing more than paint.

“Stunning, isn’t it?” Marcus grins. He turns and sets the painting down against the wall, heavy wooden frame sinking into the soft pile of the carpet. “Unfortunately, my own artistic ability extends only as far as the use of my credit card - I’ve never been able to paint anything good myself. I leave that to people with actual talent, like you.”

“How do you know?” Clarke blurts out. She regrets it as soon as the words leave her mouth, cheeks instantly flaming scarlet. 

“Hmm?”

She swallows nervously, fingers tightening around the plate that she’s still - somehow, ridiculously - holding. “How do you know that I’m talented? You’ve never seen any of my art.”

“Well,” Marcus pauses, running his fingers lightly along the top of the picture frame. His voice is quiet when he continues, almost wistful. “That’ll change soon, I hope.”

He looks at her, their eyes catching for a second before Clarke ducks her head to escape his piercing gaze. 

She casts her mind around for a change of subject, something to steer them back into clearer, less confusing waters. 

“So,” she says, voice weirdly loud. “You want me to help you with the unpacking?”

“That would certainly be very helpful, thank you. But,” Marcus plucks the plate out of her outstretched hands and puts it on the table, sweeping a mess of packing paper onto the floor to make room. “I _was_ hoping that you could help me decide where to hang them.”

“Me?”

“Why not? It’s your home too, Clarke. Surely you should have a part in decorating it?”

He’s not entirely wrong, even if he’s not entirely right. Clarke considers it, turning the idea over in her mind. “And Abby - mom - is okay with the pictures going up?”

“Of course. She doesn’t have much interest in art herself, but she’s happy for me to display them. So, what do you think? You up for it?”

Clarke nods. 

Together they get to work on unpacking the paintings, considering each one and sorting them by room. Marcus lets her lead the discussion, deferring to her opinion nine times out of ten - although he does chime in with helpful information about the quality of the light in the different areas of the house, how it changes over the course of the day. He smoothly skims over how little Clarke knows about her own home, letting it pass without comment. 

It’s fun, if a little overwhelming. It’s the first time that Clarke has been so close to so many artworks outside of a gallery or a museum, the first time that she’s been able to examine paintings at her own leisure, turning them this way and that in her hands to watch as the colours shift in the light. Her mom’s idea of artistic expression is painting a wall cream instead of white, and the closest thing to art in the Blake home are the faded crayon drawings pinned to the front of the refridgerator, childhood creations of Octavia and Clarke that Bellamy refuses to throw away (much to Octavia’s chagrin). Clarke feels like a starving person at a feast, staring wide-eyed at all the food laid out before her, ravenous but unable to manage more than the smallest morsel of each dish, full but still not satisfied. Not every artwork is to her taste, but she finds something to admire in each one, even if it’s nothing more than the flourish of a single brush stroke.

And then she finds it. 

It’s not a big picture. It’s tiny in comparison to some of the larger canvases, the ones that Marcus has to lift for her, his streamlined muscles packing a surprising amount of strength. But it’s beautiful. A stormy seascape captured in richest shades of grey and blue, distant trees picked out in harsh black silhouette against a seething gunmetal sky. It should be depressing - dark and oppressive, the promise of trouble to come, heavy clouds gathering on the horizon - and it would be, if not for the shimmering patches of vibrant colour scattered through the darkness, every shade of pink from the lightest most delicate blush to a blood swollen fuschia so dark that it’s almost red. Looking closely, Clarke can even discern the tiniest flecks of bright silver, nestled into the deepest, darkest clouds. The colours lift the picture, desperate hope shining through the gloom, lifting the tone from bleak despair to shattering, defiant heartbreak. 

“What have you got there?” Marcus is at her shoulder, his voice close in her ear, but Clarke can’t bring herself to turn away from the picture to look at him, transfixed. 

“It’s…beautiful,” she says, struggling for the right words to express what she’s feeling, all her grown-up words lost in the face of a childlike awe. “I mean, the colours - ”

“No, you said it perfectly. It _is_ beautiful,” Marcus agrees. As if sensing her doubt, he continues, his voice warm and reassuring. “There’s nothing wrong with a real emotional reaction, Clarke. Sometimes, the simplest language is the most honest.”

Clarke nods, staring at the painting, unable to tear her eyes away. 

“Well, I think we’ve found the perfect home for it.”

“We have?” she says, looking up at him in surprise. “Where?”

“Your bedroom, of course.”

“Oh.” She stands still, watching in disbelief as Marcus walks over and grabs a toolbox from by the door. “I couldn’t.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course you can. Shall we go and put it up now?”

“But - ”

“Come on.”

Once again Clarke finds herself helplessly following along behind Marcus, almost skipping up the stairs to keep up with his swift, effortless stride. She holds the painting tight to her chest, irrationally concerned about dropping it in the rush, the sharp wooden corners of the frame digging painfully into the soft flesh of her torso.

She hangs back when they reach her bedroom, lingering uneasily in the doorway. 

The rest of the house might be changing, but this room still feels cold and impersonal, the expensive furnishings and tastefully neutral decor only emphasising the emptiness, the glaring lack of any of the usual clutter you might expect to find in a teenage girl’s bedroom. There are no piles of shoes on the floor to trip over; no clothes strewn untidily over the bed; no stray bobby pins or discarded jewellery littering the surface of the dresser. The desk doesn’t groan under the weight of stacks of unfinished homework. The full-length mirror is buffed to a high shine, free from both make-up smears and fingerprint smudges. The bed remains as neat as the day it was made, bedsheets falling in sharp, crisp lines to the carpet, right angles so precise it looks like the cleaner used a set square.

It doesn’t look like a teenage girl lives here. It doesn’t look, doesn’t feel like _she_ lives here. 

If the rest of the house is a reminder of her mother’s absence, this room is a monument to her own.

“Hey.”

She jumps when Marcus puts his hand on her shoulder, lost in thought. His touch is light, tentative, as if he expects her to pull away at any moment. 

“Think of it as a blank canvas,” he says, squeezing gently. His palm is a warm, comforting weight on her shoulder. “A chance to start again. Now you can decorate your room exactly how you want it - starting with this.”

Clarke chooses to hang the painting on the wall opposite the bed, in the direct eyeline of anyone lying down. Nothing can compare to waking up next to Bellamy - _reaching out a lazy hand to trace over an expanse of warm, tan skin, freckles scattered like constellations over his broad shoulders_ \- but she supposes that, all things considered, the painting isn’t a bad second best. Marcus carefully measures up from the baseboard, marking off the distance with a pencil, Clarke reaching up on tiptoes to hold the spirit level straight as he works out where the picture hooks should go. 

“You know, it’s funny that you chose this painting.” Marcus remarks, words slurred around the nails held tight between his lips. She watches him closely, hands twitching at her sides, worried that he’ll accidentally inhale a nail into his lungs. He furrows his brow, concentrating as he lines up the hammer. “I actually know the artist quite well.”

“You do?” Clarke isn’t surprised. Of course he has exciting friends - artists and architects and explorers, maybe a few minor European royals to keep things fresh. To be honest, the only thing that she has trouble believing about Marcus is his career. How did a man like him ever end up working in health insurance?

“Uh huh.” He checks the wire on the back of the picture frame, carefully tugging to make sure that it’s fixed securely. “Indra owns a gallery downtown. I own quite a few of her pieces - that self-portrait I showed you earlier, that’s her as well.”

Clarke thinks back to the woman in the painting, her imperious eyes and penetrating stare. The blazing challenge in her gaze, something almost accusatory in the way that she stared out at her audience, as if daring them to judge her, to subject themselves to the same level of blunt, unforgiving self-assessment that she’d applied to her own portrait. 

“Is she…like that in real life?”

“Oh no.” Marcus chuckles. “Indra is far more intimidating in person, I promise.” He gestures towards the painting, resting face-down on the bed. “Do you want to do the honours?”

Something about the room changes when Clarke hangs the picture on the wall. Something in the air shifting, subtle pressure gently easing, like a long held breath finally exhaled from relieved and aching lungs. She inhales as she steps back, chest expanding and shoulders lifting, looking around the room with new, more forgiving eyes. The blank walls, the empty surfaces, the untouched bed with its crisp, white sheets - if she tries, she can almost see the room how Marcus described it. A blank canvas. A chance not so much lost, as just not yet taken. 

Marcus smiles at her, and she smiles back. 

\- -

Bellamy scrubs at his sore eyes with the back of his hand, squinting blearily at the television screen. 

It’s late, later than he really wants to acknowledge, curtains long since drawn closed against the night, living room illuminated by the flickering light of the television. He’s lying on his back on the couch, Clarke cuddled up against his side, her head resting on his chest, their legs comfortably tangled together. He brings his arm back down to wrap around her, and she takes the opportunity to nestle even closer into him, quiet sigh just audible over the low hum of the television.

She’s such a little thing, small feet barely reaching his calves, her body weighing almost nothing in comparison to Bellamy’s own bulky frame. Even lying half on top of him, her arm curled tight around his waist, the impression is one of warmth and softness rather than solid weight, so delicate that he’s half afraid to look away, scared to look back and find that he’s holding onto nothing more than empty air. _His silk and gossamer girl_. Still, Bellamy finds it difficult to breathe when they lie like this, his chest tight, his heart fit to burst with an unbearable tenderness. 

He drops a quick kiss to her forehead, her blonde hair tickling his nose. 

If nothing else, at least he has this.

“She’ll be back soon,” Clarke murmurs, rubbing his side comfortingly. “Don’t worry.”

Bellamy doesn’t answer, turning away to stare at the television, swallowing painfully around the lump that suddenly forms in his throat. Sometimes he forgets that he’s just as pathetically transparent to Clarke as she is to him: that after a decade of carefully following his every move with those big blue eyes, speech is no longer necessary for communication, his silences just as easy to read as his words. It’s probably one of the reasons why they fell together so naturally, two people that know each other better than almost anyone in the world, but there are times, like now, that he wishes it was easier to hide his feelings from her. That he could pretend for a little longer, ignore the growing fear in the pit of his belly and continue to kid himself that nothing’s wrong. 

Octavia hasn’t come home. Dinner was hours ago, he and Clarke sat opposite each other at the wobbly kitchen table, both of them picking unenthusiastically at their food, trying and failing not to look at the empty place setting laid out beside them. By mutual and unspoken agreement they haven’t mentioned her absence - but then again, they haven’t needed to. It’s already there, has been there all evening: in the way that their eyes dart to the front door at the slightest noise; in the tight grip of Clarke’s hand on Bellamy’s t-shirt as they lie together on the couch; in the awkward silence at the end of each TV episode, neither one of them really wanting to keep watching, neither one of them wanting to admit that it’s time for bed. 

That it’s time for bed, and Octavia still hasn’t come back.

Bellamy stopped checking his phone three episodes ago. He doesn’t know what hurts more - the time, or the lack of messages. 

He knows that Octavia will come back eventually. Knows that this is typical teenage behaviour, a fifteen year-old girl staying out late just to show that she can, lashing out in one of the few ways available to her. Technically, she’s not even breaking her curfew, considering that she doesn’t have one. 

And yet. For all the years that have passed since Aurora left, all the ways that Bellamy’s body has grown, lengthening and widening and hardening into something like a man, there’s a part of him that will always be that fourteen year-old kid, watching his mother walk out of the door. A boy, skinny kneed and scratchy voiced, who knows exactly how it feels to be left behind. Who can’t help but fear that the same thing is happening all over again, Bellamy forced once more to watch someone he loves leave forever, just as helpless to stop it now as he was then. 

Knowing, once again, that he has no one to blame but himself.

“She loves you, Bellamy.” The warmth in Clarke’s words is lost to him. There’s only the cold air against his skin as she lifts himself off his chest, propping herself up on one elbow to look into his face. He can feel her eyes on him, but he keeps his face turned away, his eyes fixed sightlessly on the television. “Even if she’s angry with you right now, she loves you more than anything. She’ll always come back to you.”

Bellamy laughs humourlessly, remembering O’s words to him before she left.

_“Fuck you, Bell.”_

“If she’s coming back for anyone, it’s not me.”

He turns back in time to see Clarke’s face fall, her mouth twisting in misery. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she mumbles, dropping back down to his chest. He feels her bury his face against his shirt, the hard point of her nose digging into his skin. She’s always nuzzling him there, thinks that he doesn’t notice. “I’m fine.”

“Hey, come on.” Bellamy turns onto his side facing her, trapping her between his body and the back of the couch. Clarke tries to look away, but he gently puts his finger under her chin, tipping her face upwards, leaving her no choice but to look at him. “Talk to me, baby. What’s going on with you and O?”

He doesn’t realise what he’s asking until he’s already asked it, words slipping out thoughtlessly, question left to hang heavily in the air between them. 

Clarke opens her mouth to answer but no words come out, lower lip trembling as she stares up into his eyes, her courage seemingly failing her.

Bellamy hadn’t meant to ask her such a direct question, hadn’t meant to put her in such an impossible position, caught neatly between deception or destruction. But now that they’re here, he can’t deny that he’s curious to see how she’ll answer, exactly what manner of lie she’ll choose to tell, how far she’ll go to keep him. 

If it’s as far as he’s willing to go to keep her. 

Clarke’s gaze drops from his, unable to look him in the eye as she slowly answers, feeling out each individual word as if she’s never used them before, voice only just above a whisper. Truly, she’s an awful liar, so bad that it’s almost cute, Bellamy’s chest swelling with darkly inappropriate affection as he watches her try to lie to him. 

“Octavia doesn’t like me very much right now. Every since she figured out that I…liked you, she’s been pissed at me.”

_That’s an understatement if I ever heard one_ , Bellamy thinks. _Octavia showed you her favourite game, and not only did you break all the rules, but you took her favourite piece off the board._

Clarke’s eyes are shining wet when she nervously looks back up at him, tears already threatening to spill. It’s a look that he’s seen too many times to count in bed, working her sweet and hard until she’s on the edge, normally nothing sexier to him than the blushing softness of her pouted lips, the colour that gathers high on her cheekbones, the whine that creeps into her husky voice. Looking at her now, however, he doesn’t feel turned on. He just feels like a bastard, willing to do anything to put a smile back on her face.

“You like me, huh?” he teases, forcing his mouth into a grin. He brings his hands up to clasp around her waist, ducking down to nuzzle at her cheek. “You’re so fucking cute.”

“Bellamy,” she sniffles, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, caught between his body and the couch cushion behind her. “Stop.”

“Do you _like_ like me?” he persists, sneaking his hands up and under her top, trying to catch her mouth in a kiss. She turns away with a pout, not cheered up so easily. 

“ _Shut up_ ,” Clarke whines, but there’s a lightness in her voice that wasn’t there before, the soft huff of a laugh despite herself. “You’re so lame.”

“Don’t be mean, baby,” Bellamy says, putting on a mock-offended voice. “I thought that you _liked_ me.”

He draws his fingers lightly up over her ribcage, close enough to a tickle that she squeals, kicking her legs out at him, jamming her hands into his chest to stop his advance.

“Bell, no!” she protests, voice gone squeaky and high-pitched. Her attempt at firmess is somewhat undermined by the fact that she’s already giggling, any thought of tears lost in laughter. “Don’t you dare!”

“ _You like me_ ,” he sings in a playground sing-song, leaning in to kiss at her neck. She bats uselessly at him, body squirming. “ _You want to kiss me. You want to be my girlfriend._ ” 

“You’re such a loser,” Clarke laughs, finally giving in, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in. “I can’t believe that _you’re_ older than _me_.”

Their legs entwine as they kiss, slow and unhurried. Bellamy feels the low throb of desire starting to pull in his stomach, cock hardening, but he holds back, letting himself enjoy the simple pleasure of her body pressed to his, the feel of her in his arms, close and tight and _his_. It’s cramped on the narrow couch, but that’s just an excuse to get even closer, pulling her leg up to curve around his hip, his broad hand almost spanning the width of her thigh.

“So am I?” Clarke whispers, pulling away slightly.

It takes a second for Bellamy to reply, still lost in the kiss. He opens his eyes, smiling lazily, feeling dazed. “Are you what, princess?”

“Am I your girlfriend?”

He blinks, not sure if he’s understood the question.

_Am I your girlfriend?_

How can she even ask that? How can she not know, when Bellamy’s love for her is so great that he can barely breathe around it, can’t see his way through or past it, feels it coursing through him every second that he’s with her and every second that he’s not? His shy girl, looking at him with something too close to trepidation, hands nervously plucking at his t-shirt, bottom lip caught between his teeth. How can Clarke not know what she is to him?

_No,_ he wants to say. His hands tremble with the urge to hold her, to shake her, to make her understand. _No, you’re not my girlfriend. You’re everything. You’re the love of my life. You’re it for me, princess._

But it’s too much. Too much, too far, too great a burden to place on such slender shoulders. 

Bellamy has always tried to protect Clarke and Octavia. Always tried to keep them safe from anything - or anyone - that sought to hurt them, to place the hard line of his own body between his girls and any possible harm. After all, what use does he have, if not to take care of the people that he loves?

That hasn’t changed. Even if the person that he most needs to protect Clarke from now is himself.

“Clarke,” he says. “Of course you’re my girlfriend.”

It’s not half of what he wants to say, twice as much as he _should_ say. But it gets her mouth back on his, and Bellamy is nothing if not a weak man, all too willing to put it aside, to lose himself in her once again. 

Something’s different now, something fundamentally changed in the two minutes between this kiss and the one before it. Clarke is just as close, just as sweet, but her mouth is infuriatingly light against his, the very tips of her fingers feathering across his jaw, a touch so gentle it makes him shiver. Little kitten kisses, lips barely touching his before they’re gone again, tongue fluttering against his for an instant and then disappearing, a delicate dance that Bellamy doesn’t know the steps to. He tries to deepen the kiss, his big hand carefully cradling her neck as he licks into her mouth, but every time he pushes forward she pulls back, every one of his advances met with frustrating retreat, overpowering him with submission. He’s never felt this clumsy before, this slow, having her in his arms and at the same time completely out of reach.

She’s _teasing_ him, he realises fondly. As if confirming their relationship status has awoken a new side to her, a new confidence, finally secure enough in his affections to play with them. He groans into the kiss, the realisation tripping every crossed wire in his fucked up head, not knowing how something can be so adorable and so hot at the same time. He fights the urge to take control, forcing himself to let her have his way with him. His girl, playing at being a woman. 

Then, out of nowhere, he feels her hands scrambling at his belt, struggling to unbuckle it. He’s hard, of course he is, but something jagged catches sharp in his chest, something that makes him pull back, putting his hands over her own to still them. 

“Baby, you don’t have to,” he pants. “We can do whatever you want.”

Clarke doesn’t reply, just smiles back at him, breathless and glowing. She looks so pleased with herself, newly mischievous glint shining bright in her eyes, that any misgivings that Bellamy might have had suddenly disappear, pointless in the face of her. 

Forgetting himself, he leans back in for a kiss, deftly unbuckling his belt, already starting to ease her down onto her back. 

He’s shocked when Clarke pushes him away, slapping his hands away from his buckle. She’s pouting when he looks at her, and he can’t help but reach for her again, running his thumb over her soft, swollen mouth. Bellamy hisses when she catches his thumb between her lips, sharp teeth pressing a warning into his skin. 

“Okay, okay sweetheart.” He takes the hint, pulling his hands away and up in the universal symbol for surrender, lying down on his back. “You’re in charge, huh?”

Clarke punishes him for his mistake, taking her sweet time undressing him. Agonisingly slowly, she slides his belt all the way out of the loops, meticulously rolling it up into a neat circle before she leans over him to put it carefully on the coffee table. Bellamy moans when she traces a fingertip over the thick line of his erection through his jeans, fists clenching at his sides as she glances up at him from under her eyelashes, curiously observing his reaction, shy as a virgin. She struggles to pop the button of his jeans, little fingers awkwardly working at the stiff denim, but finally, at last, she drags down the zipper, pulling his cock out through the fly of his boxer briefs. 

Bellamy’s got a big dick. It is what it is - contrary to what a less well-endowed man might believe, Bellamy is neither particularly proud nor ashamed of his cock. He’d rather that a girl like him for who he is, or at least for what he can do, rather than just for what he’s packing in his jeans. Truth be told, sometimes it feels like his cock is just another part of him to be objectified, his body divided and packaged up into neat little parcels like so much unfeeling flesh, one more excuse for rich girls to use to justify their attraction to a guy so far beneath them. 

Still, he can’t deny the thrill that runs through him as he looks down and sees the contrast between Clarke’s small hand and his cock, the way that she can’t quite wrap her fingers around his girth, the unsteady way that she handles him. He moans as she leans over and spits delicately on his cock, getting him slippery wet before she slowly starts to stroke him, brow furrowing as she concentrates on finding a rhythm, making sure that she twists her hand a little as she works, just like she knows that he likes. Bellamy closes his eyes, his head tipping back, overwhelmed by the feeling of his cock slipping through her tight fist. 

It’s not as efficient as he’d do it. Even with the amount of sex that they’ve had over the past couple of months, her touch still verges on clumsy, her rhythm just this side of faltering, nowhere near as familiar with his cock as he is, enthusiasm no subsitute for experience. But efficiency isn’t the point. The fumbling is the point, the inexperience, the soft rush of her exhale as she almost forgets to breathe, so focused on her self-appointed task. It’s the ache of his muscles as he struggles for restraint, the tightness in his jaw as he bites back instructions, letting her do whatever she wants with him. It’s the burning in his chest, knowing that his cock is the first one that she’s ever touched. 

_The only one that she’ll ever touch_ , some dark part of him whispers.

“Princess, please,” he says, control finally fraying. He’s surprised at the begging tone in his voice, nothing he’s ever heard before. “Kiss me.”

Bellamy doesn’t need to open his eyes to see Clarke’s little frown, the battle that she’s fighting with herself, torn between kissing him and wanting to concentrate on what she’s doing. She’s a perfectionist, nothing if not conscientious, and she can’t kiss him and stroke his cock properly at the same time, the movements that come so naturally to him still unfamiliar to her. But he can’t just lie here any longer, needs to do _something_ to ease the tension, not used to lying back and being taken care of like this, a passive participant in his own pleasure. If he can’t fuck her, can’t get his mouth on her wet cunt, he at least needs to kiss her. 

Her hand stills on his cock when she leans over him, her soft breasts pressing against his arm, her hair falling like a curtain around their faces. He could cry for how it feels, to be so wrapped up in her, so sweetly enclosed.

“Here,” he whispers into the kiss. He wraps his big hand around hers on his dick, gently guiding her movements, groaning at the sensation. “Good girl.”

Like this, Bellamy could almost pretend that he’s back in high school. Two bodies pressed tight together on a cramped and battered couch, breathing hard into each other’s mouths, an unsteady hand on his hard cock, just like a hundred other identical nights when he was a teenager. With his eyes closed, this could be a parallel universe, another world where he and Clarke got to be the childhood sweethearts that they were always meant to be, a relationship lived out in the light rather than kept hidden away in the dark. 

A world where their first time was in a motel, giggling drunk after senior prom, Clarke still wearing a crumpled corsage around her slender wrist. Or in the backseat of his old car, Bellamy carefully putting down his jacket for her to lie on, cranking up the noisy heating vents so that she didn’t catch a chill. Or in Clarke’s teenage girl bed, Bellamy sneaking in after lights out, his hand over her mouth so that her moans didn’t wake her mom, sleeping only a couple of doors away. 

_A world where their first time was anything other than Bellamy lying still with his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep while his sisters took their pleasure from his only too willing body._

Bellamy’s palm is large and rough on his cock, moving with an easy confidence that couldn’t be further away from Clarke’s carefully playful touch, her soft hand almost swallowed up in his as they move together over his dick. The difference is mind-blowing, sensitive nerve endings set alight by contrasting sensations, and Bellamy finds himself already hurtling towards climax, despite the awkward position, the sharp point of Clarke’s elbow jammed into his side as she tries to balance on the uneven couch cushions. 

He remembers back to the last time that he had two sets of hands on his cock. Both Clarke and Octavia’s hands had been equally small, equally soft, the teasing edge to Octavia’s touch the only thing that he could use to tell them apart. The regrets he has about that night are too numerous to count, but perhaps his most shameful regret is that he hadn’t been able to open his eyes, hadn’t been able to watch his girls as they explored, left to imagine the embarassed flush to their cheeks, the shameless curiosity in their eyes, the nervous smiles that they’d shared over his exposed body. 

In the end, that’s what tips him over the edge - the memory of that night, both of his girls touching him, wanting him so badly that they couldn’t wait, forgetting to care if he wanted them back, nothing more important in that moment than being close to him in every way that they could. A shared claim written in flesh, a reaffirmation of the bonds that held the three of them together, an ownership that moved beyond the casual possessiveness of girlhood into their first real taste of adult desire. 

Both of them _needing_ him, for once just as much as he needs them. 

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” Bellamy moans as he comes, breaking the kiss, cock jerking in their entwined grip. His come floods warm over his and Clarke’s hands, and he hisses as he slowly brings their movements to a shaky end, every muscle in his body trembling from overstimulation. 

Clarke dots little kisses over his face as he comes down, tender little scraps of affection that make him feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest. 

Clean up is easy - there’s a box of tissues on the coffee table, within easy reach of his long arm. It’s no accident. Bellamy started keeping tissues by the couch not long after Octavia began touching him, not trusting her to plan ahead, already knowing with all the weary experience of a big brother that the responsibility for cleaning up his sister’s messes would fall to him one way or another.

He balls up the dirty tissues, tossing them onto the floor before turning his attention to Clarke. 

“Your turn, princess.”

Clarke’s wearing leggings, the thin fabric already soaked through when Bellamy reaches between her legs. Her cunt is burning hot against his hand, and she bucks up as he grinds the heel of his palm against her clit, rosebud mouth falling open on a shaky moan. 

Poor baby, already so eager, so willing for him to take care of her. His sweet girl, delicate skin still flushed with the newly discovered thrill of being in charge, only too ready to give herself over to him again, to return to the familiar comfort of his arms. She’ll have to wait a little bit longer though. It’s rare that Bellamy comes first, and as he looks down at Clarke, his own body already sated, free from the relentless urging of desire, he finds that he wants to take his time with her. Wants to rest easy between her soft thighs, get her softened up and dripping and gasping for him, maybe even get his mouth on her sweet little ass if she’ll let him, the one line he’s not yet been able to cross. 

He takes his hand out from between Clarke’s legs, ignoring her little whine of disappointment, knowing that all will be forgiven once he’s got his face buried between her thighs. He’s just pulling down her leggings, Clarke raising her hips to help him undress her, when the living room is suddenly flooded with light. 

Bellamy raises his head, blinking with confusion.

Too late, he recognises the light as the blinding glare of car headlights, registers the low rumbling growl of an engine on the street outside, the crackle of wheels over gravel as a car pulls quietly into their driveway. The light cuts out as abruptly as it appeared, engine shutting off a split-second later, Clarke and Bellamy left frozen in the dark as they hear a car door open and slam shut, Octavia’s laugh ringing out through the air.

“Shit.”

\- -

They scramble off the couch, Clarke pulling up her leggings as Bellamy grabs his belt off the coffee table, fumbling it through the loops of his jeans in an effort to look somewhat normal. He kicks the dirty tissues under the couch, wincing as he does so, making a mental note to come back and clean them up later.

The air stinks of sex. Clarke’s mouth is swollen, traces of mascara smudged under her eyes, blonde hair mussed and tangled around her shoulders. Working fast, she scrapes her hair up into some semblance of a ponytail; Bellamy makes no such effort with his own hair, already knowing that it’s hopeless, messy curls sticking up in a 

hundred different directions from Clarke’s gently wandering fingers. 

There’s not enough time for Clarke to get to her bedroom; far better to let Octavia find them both in here than open the front foor to the sight of her friend running away down the hallway, damning evidence in its own right. Nothing for them to do but wait here in the living room, hoping that O is too distracted to notice anything out of place, too preoccupied with her own rulebreaking to think to wonder what they’ve been up to while she’s been gone. 

Panting, hearts racing, Bellamy and Clarke stare at each other, waiting for the sound of Octavia’s key in the door.

But it doesn’t come. 

Awkwardly they stand in the living room, still too on edge to move, listening to the low hum of conversation from outside, punctuated by the occasional giggle from Octavia. Gradually the tension begins to fade, the fear of discovery slowly ebbing away, replaced by a hot anger that builds steadily in Bellamy’s chest, each peal of his sister’s laughter stoking the flames.

How long has it been since he made Octavia laugh? Since she looked at him with anything other than anger and frustration, displeasure with an godlike big brother than turned out to be nothing more than disappointingly mortal, after all?

“Go to bed,” he whispers to Clarke. She looks at him, surprised eyes wide in the darkness. “Go on. I’ll deal with O.”

She shakes her head, opening her mouth to reply - but her protest is interrupted by the sound of a muffled thump from outside, both of their heads turning instantly towards the noise. 

Bellamy starts towards the front door, bracing himself for a fight, expecting to hear the shrill note of Octavia’s scream, Steve’s voice raised in anger - but there’s nothing but silence, Bellamy’s footsteps faltering as he strains to hear what’s going on outside. Quickly he changes course, heading for the front window instead, moving as swiftly and as quietly as he can, carefully using his body to block the light from the television as he pulls back the curtain to look outside.

It’s almost as dark in the living room as it is on the street outside, but it still takes a second for his eyes to adjust, hand slowly tightening around the curtain as he realises exactly what he’s seeing.

Octavia, his baby sister, pushed up against the side of a car, making out with Steve. 

At first he can barely even see her, tiny body almost completely hidden behind the teenage boy’s lanky frame, her hands the only visible part of her, glowing white in the dark night, clutching onto the sides of Steve’s jacket as he leans over her, boxing her in against the vehicle. Then the boy shifts, head dipping down towards Octavia’s neck, and Bellamy’s got an uninterrupted view of his little sister as she tips her head back, long hair falling gracefully behind her, mouth open around what looks like a moan. 

Bellamy doesn’t know whether to be frustrated by the darkness or grateful for it, whether he should be thankful for the guttering streetlight that shrouds the couple in constantly shifting shadow, or curse the night that keeps the precise details of his sister’s pleasure hidden from him. It’s difficult to tell what hurts more: the little that he can actually see, all of his worst fears playing out right before his eyes; or what he’s left to only imagine, tortured by the fevered workings of his own mind. 

What’s more painful? To watch, as Steve’s hand slowly moves down from his sister’s waist to slip in between the tight press of their bodies? Or to imagine the boy’s clumsy hand in between Octavia’s thighs, artlessly rubbing at her pussy through the denim of her jeans, O hiding her wince in his shoulder as the seam catches painfully at her clit? Would it be easier if Bellamy could make out the exact expression on his sister’s face, see for himself if she was enjoying it? Would the jealousy in his chest be less agonising, if he was close enough to hear the moan that Octavia makes as Steve touches her, if he could know for certain if it was real or fake?

_Would it hurt less if Bellamy was the one touching her?_

He swallows down a growl as Steve’s hand suddenly reappears, only to push up underneath Octavia’s sweatshirt - _Bellamy’s_ sweatshirt - to grope at his sister’s chest. Bellamy didn’t think that he could get any angrier, that his blood could boil any hotter in his veins, but he finds himself almost physically shaking with fury at the sight of this boy pushing past this one specific boundary, so casually ignoring the physical proof of Bellamy’s possession, the clear sign that Octavia isn’t his to take. 

His sister doesn’t need Steve to love her, to satisfy her, to take care of her. Not when she already has him.

Bellamy thinks back to the kitchen earlier that day, Octavia stood in front of him in her little crop top, black lace showing off more tan skin than it concealed. His hand twitches on the curtain as he imagines what Steve must be feeling right now - the journey of his hand over the slim curve of her waist, the thin bones of her tiny ribcage, the scratchy lace of her crop top and the sweet, sensitive flesh beneath.

Octavia has none of the softness or the shyness of Clarke, her brash personality leaving little room for hesitation or doubt. But that doesn’t mean that she isn’t delicate, that she doesn’t require careful handling - maybe even more so than Clarke, his sister surprisingly fragile under all the layers of bravado and exaggerated self-confidence. Clarke’s softness belies her strength, a thoughtful nature and extreme empathy hiding a steel inner core that sometimes even she isn’t aware of, an unshakeable sense of self that she takes for granted. In contrast, O’s strength is surprisingly brittle, barely more than a paper-thin veneer over bone-deep wounds that have never quite healed properly, requiring very little force to collapse completely. 

Steve has no idea of the value of what he’s holding in his hands, this precious thing that he handles so carelessly, so clumsily, no regard for how easily it could break. 

Bellamy starts as Clarke suddenly appears next to him, ducking gracefully under his outstretched arm, nestling close into his side. She doesn’t say a word, just watches alongside him silently, but he can hear her breath, unusually loud and ragged in the quiet night. Curiously he sneaks a glance down at her, taking in her parted lips and wide eyes, the restless movements of her hand, playing with the hem of her t-shirt, winding the thin cotton round and round her fingers. Her gaze is fixed on the scene outside, like she can’t tear her eyes away. 

_Interesting._

There’s a loud squeal of laughter from outside, and Bellamy reluctantly turns away from Clarke to see his sister grinning up at her boyfriend, her arms reaching up to wrap around his neck. He’s initially reassured to see that her sweatshirt is back in place, Steve’s hands resting safely on her hips, but Bellamy’s relief is short-lived, giving way to a whole new anger when the boy lifts Octavia’s slender leg to curl around his waist, grinding against her with uneven, jerky movements. 

As Bellamy watches, his sister’s head tips back once more in apparent ecstasy, gaze lowering until she seems to be staring directly at the window, looking right at him. Face cast in shadow, eyes dark and unknowable, he has no idea whether Octavia can actually see him, whether it’s defiance or coincidence that makes her mouth fall open in pleasure at that exact moment, her leg lifting even higher around Steve’s waist, skinny arms tightening around his broad shoulders. All he knows is that he can’t stand there for one more second watching this boy rut against his little sister, not without completely losing the already tenuous grip he has on his sanity.

“Go to bed, Clarke,” Bellamy says, making sure to keep his voice low, eyes locked onto his sister. “I mean it this time.”

He doesn’t look to check Clarke’s reaction as he pushes past her, only dimly registering the fading sound of her retreating footsteps, the quiet click of the bedroom door pulling closed in the second before he flicks on the hallway light and wrenches open the front door.

Light spills into the front yard, Octavia and Steve’s heads snapping up in unison. Steve looks even more ludicrous than usual, standing slackjawed staring up at Bellamy in the doorway, a comical look of shock on his face. O's face is cooly inscrutable, features set in a carefully blank, almost bored expression, no trace of the passion that had apparently been sweeping her away only moments earlier. 

Belatedly Steve steps back from Octavia, letting her leg fall to the ground. She doesn’t move from her position agaist the car - makes no effort to straighten up or adjust her clothing, no attempt at even the smallest token gesture of shame. If anything, she leans back even further, casually lounging against the car in an exaggerated display of indifference that Bellamy might find amusing if it weren’t so infuriating. 

“Octavia, come inside.” Bellamy’s voice is so thick with anger it's almost unrecognisable, hand clenching around the door handle as he stares at his sister. It’s taking everything he has not to just walk over and pick her up, just toss her over his shoulder and physically carry her into the house. “Right now.”

“Bellamy…” Octavia finally stands up straight, voice already rising to a sulky whine, clearly gearing up for an argument. “Come on, we were just - ”

“Now, O.” 

For all her nonchalance, feigned or otherwise, Octavia at least has the good sense to recognise the depths of her brother’s anger - or, at least, the sense to recognise when she’s pushed her luck as far as it can go, the consequences of any further rebellion likely to outweigh any personal satisfaction she might derive. Mouth twisted into a scowl, fists clenched tight at her side, she reluctantly obeys.

Bellamy stands back to let her in. If it hurts that his baby sister blanks him, that she won’t even look him in the eye as she walks past, at least he can take some measure of sour comfort in the fact that she doesn’t spare a single glance back at her boyfriend either. He stares after her long after she disappears along the hallway, hoping that he’s imagining the faint smell of cigarettes that lingers in her wake.

A jangling sound draws Bellamy's attention back to Steve, turning to see the teenager fumbling with his keys, one hand already on the car door handle. 

“You.” Steve looks up, eyes wide. “Wait.”

The look of fear on the boy’s face as Bellamy descends the steps and walks towards him is so abjectly pathetic that he almost finds himself feeling sorry for him.

Almost. 

Steve puts his hands up as Bellamy approaches, face cracking into a nervous grin. “Hey man, look - ”

“Shut up.”

Steve may be tall enough to tower over Octavia, but he’s short compared to her big brother, the very top of his head barely clearing Bellamy’s chin. He’s got a lanky teenager’s frame, all jutting bone and wiry muscle, barely enough flesh to keep his jeans up, still years away from filling out to anywhere near Bellamy’s bulk. Not that it really makes much difference. Even if they were the same size, Steve doesn’t have a decade of boxing under his belt, hasn’t spent the last two years tossing drunk assholes out of bars, clearly hasn’t come any closer to a real fight than the hard plastic feel of an Xbox controller clutched in his sweaty grip.

It’s almost too easy to crowd the boy up against his own car, some animal part of Bellamy revelling in the opportunity to show off his superior strength at the same time as it laments the lack of any real challenge. 

“This is your first, and last, warning,” Bellamy snarls, placing his hands on the car on either side of Steve’s bony shoulders, leaning in close. “I catch you like that with my sister again - ”

“Look,” Steve splutters. Bellamy has no idea what his spitfire of a sister sees in this idiot, how she can even stand to let him touch her. “I’m sorry man, I didn’t think we were doing anything wrong.”

_Steve’s scrawny hips grinding in between Octavia’s spread thighs, his grasping hand wrapped around her slender leg, panting wetly into the side of her neck. Bellamy’s baby sister, head thrown back in calculated ecstasy, face hidden in shadow but challenge clear, even through the darkness._

“You didn’t think that you were doing anything wrong?” Bellamy presses in even closer, Steve almost bent over backwards in a desperate attempt to keep some distance between them, feet scrabbling for purchase in the loose gravel. There’s a dull metallic clink as he loses his grip on his keys, keychain falling to the ground. Bellamy ignores it. “She’s _fifteen_. What about that doesn’t seem _wrong_ to you?”

Steve doesn’t even try to answer, mouth hanging open as he gawps up at Bellamy, dumb with fear. 

_She’s fifteen._

Bellamy freezes, staring down at Steve, his own words ringing in his ears. The sounds of the night around him - the distant hum of traffic, the rasping sound of the teenager’s panicked breath, the grind of the gravel beneath their feet - gradually fade away until the question is all he can hear, the fevered truth of his own accusation echoing louder and louder, damning and inescapable. 

_What about that doesn’t seem wrong to you?_

The laughter rises in his throat, acrid and bitter. Bellamy, the chivalrous big brother, fierce defender of his sister’s honour. 

Like he hadn’t washed the last remaining trace of his sister’s honour off his dick months ago. 

Like he hasn’t spent the last couple of months making love to Clarke any chance he can get, taking advantage of a girl who doesn’t know any better than to trust him, happily bargaining away his soul one piece at a time for even the briefest taste of her sweet, silken cunt. 

_Clarke moaning exhaustedly above him, tired hips working a lazy circle as her eyes fall closed, wet lashes almost black against her pale skin. A droplet of sweat trailing a crooked path down between her trembling breasts, nipples sore from his mouth, bruises already blooming on soft velvet flesh. Bellamy’s hand splayed across her collarbone, thumb tucked into the hollow at the base of her throat, feeling the furious beat of her heart underneath his palm._

He blinks. 

_She’s fifteen._

Bellamy takes a step back, Steve rocking unsteadily on his heels as he suddenly falls back down to the ground, fighting to keep his balance. The teenager looks up at Bellamy, confused.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Bellamy says quietly.

Steve nods like he can’t believe his luck, scrambling for his keys in the gravel, almost falling into the car in his haste to get away. His sprawling limbs are barely tucked into the driver’s seat before he starts the engine, backing out of the driveway at such alarming speed that Bellamy half expects to hear a collision, the shattering impact of  steel on steel. 

Bellamy doesn’t turn to watch Steve go. 

Instead, he looks back to the house, weary eyes travelling a familiar path over the sagging front porch, the warped and disjointed gutters, the flaking paintwork, obvious even in the dim light. He knows exactly what it must look like to an outsider, this dilapidated and decaying property, a palpable sense of neglect clinging to its walls, tight and suffocating as any clambering weed. A home whose deprivation is matched only by its mundanity, the lives of its inhabitants surely just as dull and dismal as their surroundings, condemned to an existence just as tiny and limited as the boundaries of their falling-down fence. An ordinary kind of misery, barely worthy of note or interest.

No one would never know, from the outside, that this crumbling, broken-down house is home to the two most important people in the world. The only two people in the world that Bellamy would fight for, would do anything to keep safe, would give up everything, anything to protect. 

Even if it means giving them up, too.

\- -

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut as the bedroom door crashes open, Octavia sweeping into the room with all the grace and reserve of a category five hurricane. For such a small girl, her friend manages to make a surprising amount of noise, the furniture bearing the brunt of her frustrated anger as she gets ready for bed - yanking open the squeaking wardrobe door, slamming drawers closed so that the whole dresser rattles and shakes, kicking off her shoes with such force that they fly across the room and hit the wall with a bang. 

Finally she sits on the bed with a loud huff, the whole mattress tipping so that Clarke has to discretely cling to the bedframe to keep from rolling into the centre. 

“Such a _dick_ ,” Octavia mutters viciously. It doesn’t take much effort to figure out who she’s talking about. “I can’t _fucking_ believe him.”

The mattress tips again as Octavia stands up, followed a second later by the unmistakeable sound of a zipper, the soft _whoosh_ of fabric as her clothes fall to the carpet. 

Through it all Clarke keeps her face hidden in her pillow, eyes clamped tightly closed, willing the pounding in her chest and between her legs to subside. She feels strangely on edge, tense and anxious in a way that she can’t find the words to describe, like her skin is too tight, her limbs cramped and constricted, trapped. Octavia’s obvious agitation only makes the feeling worse - every murmured expletive, each petulant stamp of her foot chafing against already sensitive nerves, pulling tight against the tension that’s strung through every inch of Clarke’s body, sharp and cutting as piano wire.

Clarke loves Bellamy. It’s not a lie. She turns the emotion over and over in her mind, tracing over its rounded edges, feeling the comforting, sun-warmed weight of it, a love worn smooth by time and use like a jagged rock worn down by the sea. It’s her bedrock, the truth laid deep in the very foundations of her self upon which everything else rests, a world built around his lazy morning smile, the curl of his messy hair between her fingers, his large body wrapped around hers, memory stacked on memory like so many bricks. She doesn’t _want_ to be with anyone else. 

So why is she simultaneously longing for and dreading the moment when her best friend gets into bed with her? Why is it so difficult to keep her body still, to stop her thighs from clenching and rubbing together, hands holding tight on to her pillow just so that they don’t wander down between her legs? Why couldn’t she tear herself away from the window earlier, feeling like a creep in the darkness even as her eyes greedily followed every movement of Steve’s hands over Octavia’s body, her own fingers twitching helplessly at her side? 

Why can’t she forget last night? That strange half-dream, half-fantasy, lying in wait just below the surface of her mind, haunted by the image of Octavia’s dark head between her thighs, there every time she closes her eyes, no matter how forcefully she pushes it away or ignores it. 

Where did this sudden desire for her best friend come from?

No, not desire. Desire is what she feels for Bellamy, the soft melting centre of her body every time she thinks of him, the banked fire in her stomach that never quite goes out, flaring back to life with a single blazing look from his eyes. This isn’t desire. This is _compulsion_. Fingers, reaching out towards the flickering light of a naked flame, skin already tingling from the heat, ignoring the promise, the certainty of pain to come, all reason lost to the intoxicating lure of self destruction.

The covers lift as Octavia gets into bed, Clarke’s body tensing as she tries to stop herself rolling into the centre of the mattress, desperate to preserve the distance between their bodies. Like a prey animal in flight, her mind suddenly clears, all thought and purpose turning towards the achievement of one central aim - survival. Just one touch is surely all it would take for her best friend to know exactly what Clarke’s been doing, to sense the lingering trace of Bellamy on her skin, to feel the need that still shivers through her body. 

To know exactly how much of that need is for her. 

She freezes as Octavia wriggles deeper under the covers, shuffling closer and closer until she’s pressed right up against Clarke’s back, one slim leg slipping between hers, cold feet tickling the back of her calves. Octavia’s skinny arm snakes around her waist, holding on tight, sharp little chin digging almost painfully into her shoulder as she rests her head against Clarke’s.

Long moments pass just like that, Clarke careful not to move, concentrating on keeping up the pretence of sleep even as the sense of confinement steadily grows, rapidly becoming unbearable. O’s body is wrapped so tightly around hers that it’s difficult to breathe, hot and stuffy under the covers, not quite enough oxygen for both of them, the air getting thinner with every inhale and exhale. Octavia’s legs are bare, but she’s not naked, swaddled in what could only be one of Bellamy’s discarded sweatshirts, and the thick cotton is rough against Clarke’s exposed and overly sensitive skin, the weight of the thick fabric only adding to her discomfort. 

Lost in her own unease, preoccupied with the swirling mass of her own thoughts, it takes a while for her to notice that her best friend isn’t totally still, slim hips slowly rocking against the curve of Clarke’s body. Tentative, hesitant, a movement so slight that at first Clarke thinks that she’s imagining it, nothing more than a byproduct of her own guilty fantasies and the arousal that still courses through her veins, desperately searching for any outlet for release, no matter how improbable. It’s only when Octavia opens her mouth against her neck, breath coming in sharp little pants against Clarke’s skin, that she realises that she obviously isn’t the only frustrated girl in the bed. 

Despite herself, Clarke smiles into the pillow, amused by the idea that Octavia is in exactly the same situation as her, Bellamy accidentally denying both his girls an orgasm tonight. No wonder O is frustrated. 

Clarke’s smile soon falters, head turning to muffle a gasp as Octavia’s movements continue, gentle but insistent thrusts that make her neglected clit throb, tension winding tighter and tighter in her belly with each rocking motion. She’s hyperaware of Octavia’s skinny thigh, tucked up tight between her own, the bony point of her friend’s knee holding her legs apart, blunt pressure so close to where she needs it, so tantalisingly near and yet so frustratingly far away. It would take so little effort to bear down, to get some of that welcome friction on her cunt, the need for release almost impossible to resist now that it’s finally within reach.

She tries to imagine it, how it would go if she were to reach behind her right now, put her hand on Octavia’s sharp hip to encourage her movements, wriggling down against her friend’s thigh, both of them using the other to reach the climax that they’ve been so cruelly denied. Would her best friend laugh her off, insisting that she meant nothing by it, Clarke left humiliated by her misreading of a meaningless impulse? Would O be even angrier with her than she is now, pulling away as if the contact burned, face twisted into an expression of horror? Or would she melt into her touch, soft and sweet like she almost never is, pulling Clarke back into the cradle of her body, holding her knee firm to give her something to really rub against? Would Octavia take Clarke’s hand in hers, pull it down to her own needy cunt, show her exactly how she likes to be touched, while her clever fingers returned the favour? 

Distantly Clarke hears movement in the hallway, the heavy tread of Bellamy’s footsteps as he goes into his room, the door closing quietly behind him. 

Octavia’s open mouth presses hot against her neck, Clarke unable to control the deep shudder that rolls through her body as her friend traces a slow path upwards to her ear, delicately tugging on the lobe between her teeth. 

“I know you’re not asleep,” Octavia whispers.

Clarke’s eyes spring open, spell instantly broken, reality flooding back like a splash of cold water to the face.

What is she doing? How could she even consider risking what she has with Bellamy, the pleasure and the peace that she finds only in his arms, for a single fleeting moment of selfish release? How could she live with herself after betraying him again, after everything that she’s already done to him? Everything that _they’ve_ already done to him, their friendship already struggling to survive the events of that night, slowly suffocating under the secret weight of all the things that they’ve done to their brother?

“We need to talk,” she says.

A pause, a moment of tense silence, and then Octavia’s sighing heavily, pulling away, Clarke’s back left cold without the warmth of her friend’s body pressed close against her. There’s a click as O turns on the bedside lamp, weak yellow light filling the room.

“Talk about what?”

Clarke rolls over, coming face to face with her best friend. Like this, long black hair spread out messily across the white pillow, almost swallowed up in her brother’s oversized sweatshirt, Octavia looks deceptively small, innocent and defenceless. Only her eyes give her away, dark and challenging, Clarke feeling like a child under her friend’s piercing gaze.

“Come on Octavia,” she pleads, voice barely rising above a whisper. “We can’t just ignore it. You know exactly what we did.”

_What you’re still trying to do_ , she silently adds.

Octavia’s mouth compresses into a straight line, her lips thin and bloodless. “Fine. Let’s talk about it, _again_ , for all the good that’ll do. Or - I’ve got a better idea. Should we just tell him? Get it over with, come clean?”

Clarke doesn’t reply, momentarily paralysed with fear, feeling all the colour draining rapidly from her face at just the idea of telling Bellamy, already imagining his horrified reaction, the look of stunned betrayal in his eyes, the unbearable pain of watching him turn away from her. 

From the sour expression on her friend’s face, Clarke’s reaction looks exactly as dramatic as it feels.

“I see,” Octavia says, voice dangerously calm. “Let’s be honest, sure, but not _too_ honest, right? Nothing that might stop Bellamy seeing you as his perfect little _princess_.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke mumbles, so pathetically that she almost cringes to hear herself.

“You used to be on my side,”Octavia says bitterly. “You used to be mi- you used to be _my_ friend. Now you care more about Bellamy than you ever did about me. All because of some stupid _crush_.”

“O,” Clarke says desperately, hand reaching out to grasp her friend’s shoulder, ignoring the pain as O squirms away from her touch. “O, there are no sides.”

Octavia laughs, turning away from her to lie on her back, staring up at the ceiling. “That’s what people always say when they’re not on your side.”

Clarke looks at her.

To a stranger, O might look like any other teenage girl in an argument with her best friend. Stroppy, obstinate, sullen, a spoilt brat hardly worthy of sympathy or second thought. But Clarke knows better. She can see the microscopic tremor that runs through Octavia’s defiant jaw, the hint of moisture in her blazing eyes, the trembling of her fingers before she closes them into a fight fist on the bedcover. All the signs of her friend’s confusion and pain, her feelings of abandonment, clumsily hidden behind a hastily erected wall of anger. 

It’s weird to think of Octavia as the victim here. She’s the one who started this whole thing, after all, the reason that three of them have ended up trapped in this tangled, impossible mess. She’s the one who started touching Bellamy in the first place, the one who - if Clarke let her guard down for more than a second - would still shamelessly be taking advantage of her brother, even the idea of guilt beyond her comprehension.

And yet, in some complicated way that makes Clarke’s head hurt to contemplate, O _is_ a victim, even if it’s only of her own actions. More than any of them, this fucked up little family is all Octavia has, completely reliant on her brother and her best friend as her only source of love, affection, anything even approaching security. Now things are shifting, one side of their triangle almost entirely redrawn, the sacred geometry of their home fundamentally altered forever, and O left with no real idea of what is happening or why. It almost makes sense, that the more things change, the further Clarke pulls away, the more desperately Octavia would cling to her brother, to try and get closer to him in any way that she can, force things back to the way that they were before that night. 

Maybe that’s the key to everything, the way out for all of them that Clarke’s been searching for, hidden right under her nose this whole time. All this wasted time, all this cold distance slowly growing between them, and maybe all Octavia needed all along was her best friend. 

And perhaps, if she’s honest with herself, that’s exactly what Clarke needs too. The flimsy line between love and desire, so thin, so delicate, so easily tripped over - as she’s discovered with Bellamy - isn’t it possible that all these strange feelings, this mindless _compulsion,_ is just a reaction to the loss of her relationship with Octavia? Some small, hidden part of her, the lost little girl still living deep inside, mistaking need for _need_ , craving closeness with her best friend, not caring what form it takes?

If Bellamy is the one who always took care of Clarke - made sure that she was fed and warm and loved, that she had somewhere to belong - then Octavia is the one who was always at her side. Right there, to cheer her up when she was miserable, to fight her corner when she felt totally alone, to tempt her into mischief when she felt the weight of the world lying heavily on her shoulders. Never judging, never dismissing, the only other person she knew who understood what it was like to be a teenage girl growing up without a mother. 

If Bellamy is the one that gave Clarke a home, then Octavia is the one who lived in it with her.

Who is Clarke, without her best friend?

“Then I’m on your side.”

O looks back at Clarke, eyes narrowing, eyebrows drawing together skeptically. 

“You’re on my side,” she says slowly, testing the truth of the words. “You mean it?”

“Of course.” Clarke reaches out for Octavia’s hand on the covers, gently unfurling her clenched fist, lacing their fingers together. She runs her thumb along the line of O’s slender wrist, feeling the thin bones shift under her touch. “If there are sides, then I’m on your side. Like always.”


	2. Chapter 2

If Clarke was nervous that her new understanding with Octavia would be put to the test immediately - the fragile, fractured lines of their relationship, only just beginning to knit back together, forced to bear the strain of yet another confrontation between best friend and boyfriend - she needn’t have worried.

At first she’s on edge, anxiety gnawing relentlessly at her insides, just waiting for the next fight between Bellamy and Octavia. Her stomach twists and shudders, sensitive to even the slightest hint of conflict; the tender skin around her nails left torn and sore from the constant worrying of sharp teeth; her nerves, already tense to the point of fraying, somehow pulling even tighter around her chest until she thinks that she just might suffocate from it, putting her fingers to her wrist to feel the frantic beat of her pulse just under the surface. The smallest things are enough to set Clarke off, stomach dropping as the tension rises between the warring siblings, choking down raw panic with every sarcastic remark and barely concealed insult, convincing herself anew each time that this is _it_.

The inevitable moment when she finds herself caught in the middle, two identical pairs of dark eyes turning to her for understanding, for agreement. For an ally.

She’s surprised then, when an uneasy calm begins to settle over the household instead. Not so much peace as reluctant ceasefire, brother and sister circling each other warily like wounded animals, still snapping and snarling, but backing down whenever it seems that outright violence is about to erupt. A silent war, lines drawn with closed doors and tight lips, trading clenched fists and awkward silence instead of blows and insults, falling back to the considered tactics of avoidance and retreat rather than indulging in the bloodthirsty rush of attack. It should be reassuring. Perhaps Clarke should see it as a positive development, a sign that the siblings are slowly softening towards one another once more, tentatively taking their first tiny steps towards reconciliation. But instead she can’t help but feel even more anxious, a deep sense of foreboding settling heavily into the pit of her stomach, sinking a little deeper with every day that Bellamy and Octavia continue to ignore each other.

Over the past decade, Clarke’s seen the Blake siblings in every imaginable state and mood: joined at the hip and at each other’s throats, screaming with laughter and shrieking with frustration, unable to stand being apart and unable to bear being in the same room. Their relationship has always been unpredictable, at once both exhausting and exhilarating to observe, each interaction equally likely to provoke a blazing argument or a tender moment of shared nostalgia, an emotional landscape as chaotic and complex as any weather system. Only one thing always remains constant, the one fixed point in all the time that Clarke has known them - their incredible connection, their unnerving ability to know what the other is thinking or feeling with a single look, an almost telepathic bond forged in childhood, formed in the dark vacuum of their mother’s absence. Even when they fight, they’re connected. _Especially_ when they fight, their very closeness the fuel that lends their arguments such heat and energy, like a nuclear reaction, two atoms forced closer and closer together until they have no choice but to collide.

This cold detachment, this cool and feigned indifference to one another, is new. New, and infinitely disturbing, not just for how it feels to witness but for what it signifies, the deeper rift slowly forming beneath the surface, invisible cracks splintering unseen through the very core of their once unbreakable bond. The connection between them, the foundation of their relationship, gently crumbling, falling silently away into dust, into thin grey ash, blown away in the wind.

\- -

“Bell, no, I can’t.”

Clarke reaches down between her legs, hands shaking as she gently pushes Bellamy’s head away from her cunt.

It’s been hours. Hours, and too many orgasms to count, her body forced to shatter again and again under his insatiable, indefatiguable mouth, his rough and steady hands the only thing left holding her together. Her mouth is far too dry to moan, and she ran out of breath to scream a long time ago, reduced to letting out no more than a tiny, pathetic gasp each time she comes, hands tearing uselessly at the damp and wrinkled sheets, toes curling tight into broad, freckled shoulders.

And Bellamy, calmly watching her with those big, dark eyes, humming in genuine sympathy each time she breaks, large palms skimming soothingly along her trembling thighs, tenderly putting all the broken pieces of her back together, only then to lower his head, and do it to her all over again.

“Bellamy,” she repeats, voice whisper thin. She swallows, wincing at the feel on her dry throat. “Stop.”

He looks up at her, eyes blurry and unfocused. _Punch drunk_ , she thinks fondly, despite her irritation. _Cunt drunk_.

“One more,” he says quietly, voice hoarse. He quickly dips his head to drop a kiss to her clit, her fingers tightening in his hair just a fraction of a second too late to stop him. Even that brief contact is enough to make her jerk sharply, her whole body oversensitised and raw. “Look at that pretty pussy, huh? Just one more, baby, I know you can do it.”

Clarke shakes her head. “Please. I can’t.” She shudders as he rubs his cheek against the tender inside of her thigh, rough stubble shivering over damp and delicate skin. “No more.”

Ignoring her, Bellamy’s mouth somehow finds its way back to her cunt, Clarke whining at the feel of his soft lips on her swollen clit. She yanks hard at his hair, squirming desperately under him, unable to close her legs with his body in the way, splayed out and defenceless. “Bellamy…”

He stills, eyes flickering up briefly to check her expression before he reluctantly pulls away, Clarke collapsing gratefully back onto the mattress. He makes his leisurely way up her body, pausing for a moment to nuzzle at her breasts before he finally settles his weight back over her, face to face.

“I’m sorry, princess.” Bellamy smiles, but his voice is unexpectedly quiet, gaze dropping from hers as his head hangs down to his chest. In the dull glow of the bedside lamp, the warm light turning his skin to gold and burnished bronze, the effect is almost unbearably intimate, filthy soft words taking on the hushed tone of a confession. “I just can’t control myself around you.”

Clarke reaches up with both hands to frame his jaw, tipping his head up to face her. Bellamy’s eyes are heavy lidded as he stares back at her, full mouth still wet from her cunt, damp skin glistening in the muted light, illuminating the tiny scar on his upper lip. Without thinking, she swipes her thumb across his mouth, gathering up her own wetness. His eyes darken, pupils dilating when she delicately sucks her thumb into her mouth, curling her tongue around the slender digit, tasting herself.

“Come here,” she whispers, pulling Bellamy down to rest against her. He goes easily, pliable as a child, tucking his face into the side of her neck, one large arm wrapping around her waist. His stubble is sharp against the thin skin of her throat; she’ll have to use concealer tomorrow to cover the abrasion, twin to the aching soreness between her legs.

She reaches over and turns off the light.

\- -

“I’ll be back late tonight,” Bellamy shouts to the girls from the hallway, rifling through the coat rack for his leather jacket. Unsuccessful, he groans before heading back into the living room, where Octavia and Clarke are settled in for the evening, curled up on the couch watching television. “Either of you two seen my jacket?”

Clarke looks up at him and shakes her head. Already ready for bed, she’s stupid adorable with her hair in messy pigtails, legs drawn up tightly to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees. Her feet poke out from under the hem of her oversized tee, toenails painted a pale shade of baby blue, varnish chipped on the big toe.

If they were alone, Bellamy would catch one of her cute little feet in his hand, run his fingers over the sensitive sole to make her squirm, sink to his knees and breathe in the scent of her cunt through her white cotton panties. Instead, he winks quickly at her, enjoying how she blushes in response, the way that her eyes widen slightly before she hides her face in her knees.

Octavia is oblivious to the exchange, her latest tactic being to ignore everything that her big brother does. Hair still wet from the shower, swaddled in a white bath robe, she doesn’t even bother to look up when Bellamy approaches her, bent over her phone where it rests on the arm of the couch.

He clears his throat.

“O?”

His sister scowls but doesn’t lift her head, eyes stubbornly fixed to her phone, scrolling through something on the screen. The coach squeaks as Clarke shifts uncomfortably, the tension in the room already starting to rise.

“Octavia.” Bellamy says again, unable to help the irritation that bleeds into his tired voice.

“What?” she snaps, finally looking up at him, eyebrows raised. She stops scrolling, but doesn’t take her finger off the cracked screen, making it abundantly clear that he’s on borrowed time.

“My jacket?” He sighs at Octavia’s blank look. “Have you seen my leather jacket?”

O shrugs, gaze dropping back down to her phone. _Time’s up._

Barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Bellamy strides past her into the kitchen, angrily grabbing his jacket when he sees it hanging over the back of a chair.

It wasn’t so long ago that he had to wrestle his jacket from Octavia every time he went to work, pulling it on with the worn leather still warm from her baby skin, catching her strawberry scent whenever he turned his head, even hours into his shift. No matter that it was big enough to wrap around her slight body twice over, that the sleeves hung far past the tips of her dainty fingers, that the lining stunk of stale booze and even staler tobacco. It was his, and so it was hers, just another target for his little sister’s magpie greed.

Now, he’s lucky if he can even get Octavia to look him in the eye.

“We’ve got someone new starting tonight,” Bellamy continues, walking back into the living room, shrugging on the jacket. It feels cold and stiff against his skin, and he rolls his shoulders awkwardly, stretching out his neck muscles. “I’ll need to show her how to lock up, so I’ll be back late.”

“Whatever,” Octavia mutters, still endlessly scrolling on her phone. He imagines ripping the fucking thing out of her hands and crushing it under his boot, twisting his heel and hearing the satisfying crunch of breaking glass. “We’re not babies anymore, _Bellamy_.”

That much is obvious, he thinks ruefully. Things used to be so much easier back then - or, if not exactly easier, at least far simpler. Back when all his baby sister wanted was to be close to him, Bellamy barely able to walk a single step without feeling her chubby fingers tugging at his jeans, pulling him back to her. He’d almost grown up lopsided, so used to carrying Octavia around perched on one jutting hip.

“Fine. See you later,” he says to his sister’s indifferent bent head.

Bellamy pauses at the front door to take a deep breath, scrubbing his hands over his face as he slowly exhales. He looks up when he hears the soft pad of footsteps across the carpet, turning to see Clarke coming towards him, a nervous expression on her face.

Poor thing, to be caught in the middle like this. None of this is her fault, but he can only too easily imagine the kind of things that she must be telling herself, all the poisonous whispers and thoughts swirling behind those big solemn eyes.

“Hey princess,” he whispers, holding his hand out to her. “You come to see me off?”

Clarke nods, glancing quickly behind her to check the coast is clear before she takes his hand, letting him pull her in close. Bellamy wraps his jacket around her as she gets up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, her pink lips like rose petals against his skin.

“You’ll be a good girl while I’m gone, yeah? Keep my bratty sister in line?” he says, tracing his fingertips over her jaw, cupping her face in his hand. He’s yet to find one straight line on his girl, even her cheek a sweetly yielding curve that fits perfectly to his palm.

Clarke nods shyly - how is she _still_ shy around him? - and he kisses her, a gentle thing that predictably deepens immediately, Bellamy groaning as she obediently opens her mouth under his. He tugs playfully at a pigtail before he lets his hands travel down her body, slipping under her t-shirt to cup her buttocks through her panties.

“Fuck,” he growls, squeezing her ass, pulling her tight against him so she can feel how much she affects him, how much he wants her. “Later, baby.”

Bellamy opens the front door and steps out into the night, leaving Clarke standing alone in the hallway, bare toes curling on the carpet as the cold air rushes in.

\- -

Clarke shivers as the front door shuts behind Bellamy, turning and almost skipping across the carpet in her rush to get back to the warmth of the living room. Distracted, she doesn’t look up until she’s already halfway through the doorway, skidding to an abrupt stop when she sees Octavia, stood in the middle of the room, undoing her bath robe.

“What - what are you doing?”

“Hmm?”

O turns round to face Clarke as she lets the robe fall to the floor. For one heart-stopping moment, Clarke panics that her friend isn’t wearing anything underneath - thoughts racing as she tries to figure out just how obvious her crush has become, exactly how Octavia intends to turn it to her advantage - but then she sees a pair of tiny denim shorts, a flimsy black camisole, and she relaxes, relief flooding through her.

_Relief_ , she tells herself firmly. _Relief - that’s what this feeling is._ Not _disappointment._

Belatedly, she realises that Octavia is talking.

“Get dressed,” Octavia says, wiggling her eyebrows mischievously. She grins, that old dangerous tiger grin that Clarke had almost forgotten, it’s been so long since it’s been directed at her. “ _We’re_ going out.”

“But - ” Clarke splutters, stunned. She puts out a hand to steady herself on the doorframe. “What - _where_?”

“A party,” her best friend says smugly. “Steve’s taking us.”

“A party?” Clarke repeats, still frozen in place, struggling to understand what’s happening. Her brain feels like one of those old CDs that Aurora used to play, so scratched that they used to randomly skip tracks or loop the same three seconds over and over, no matter how diligently Bellamy polished them with the corner of his t-shirt. “What?”

Octavia sighs. “Come _on_ , Clarke. It’s been _ages_ since we had any fun, and I wanna go to a party. A real one.”

“I - ”

“Pleeease?” Octavia stretches the word to its limits, voice wobbling slightly, clasping her hands beseechingly to her chest. “It’ll be no fun without you.”

Clarke looks at her, considering. She’s not an idiot. She knows exactly what this is, exactly what Octavia is offering her - an olive branch, a chance for her to prove that she meant what she promised the other night, that the weight of her loyalty still rests firmly with her best friend. Really, she’s lucky that this is the test being handed to her, the price of their continued friendship coming in relatively cheap at just one illicit party - rather than arson, or theft, or any one of a dozen other minor crimes she has no doubt Octavia is fully capable of committing without a backwards glance.

It’s just a party. Sneaking out on a Friday night, drinking, dancing - that’s the kind of trouble that teenagers are _meant_ to be getting into. Good, clean, harmless fun. So old fashioned it’s practically expected.

What could go wrong?

Clarke takes a deep breath, hoping that she doesn’t end up regretting what she’s about to say next.

“We need to be back before Bellamy - ”

Octavia whoops with joy, reaching for her hand and dragging her towards their room, practically dancing down the hallway in her excitement.

“He can’t find out, O,” Clarke warns, fighting to keep the smile out of her voice, Octavia’s happiness infectious. She staggers, almost yanked off her feet by her friend’s strong grip. “I don’t know what he’d do.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Octavia breezily replies, pulling her into the bedroom. She lets go of Clarke’s hand and rushes over to her laptop, pulling up Spotify and scrolling through playlists. “You heard him, he’s gonna be back late anyway. We’ve got loads of time.”

“Okay. Well.” Clarke glances down to find that she’s wringing her hands nervously like an old woman, hastily bringing them back down to her sides before the other girl notices. “Okay.”

Pop music blasts out from the laptop, Octavia raising her voice to be heard over the noise. “Clarke, stop looking for things to worry about. It’ll be fine. Get dressed, and then I’ll do your make-up for you.”

“Get dressed?” Clarke wants to wring her hands again. What do you wear to a party? The only parties that she’s even been to were birthday parties when she was a kid or formal work functions as her mom’s awkward plus one, neither of which have really prepared her for this situation. She has no idea where O got _her_ outfit - the tiny denim shorts that only just cover her buttocks, the flimsy black camisole that drops all the way down to the very small of her back, exposing the sweeping arches of her shoulder blades like butterfly wings, the entire vulnerable length of her spine, Clarke’s fingers itching with the impulse to trace down the line of it, to trip and tumble over each individual protruding vertebrae, cool water falling over jagged rocks.

Clarke doesn’t own any clothes like that. And, even if she did, there’s no way that she could actually wear them - at least not without looking like a hooker, the curves of her body so unlike Octavia’s graceful, neat form, like an open invitation that she never meant to issue and doesn’t know how to rescind.

“Stop thinking,” Octavia orders, walking back over to her. “Just put on a dress or something. And keep your hair like this.” She tugs one of Clarke’s pigtails, an oblivious echo of her brother’s earlier move. “The schoolgirl look. The boys will _love_ it.”

_The boys._

Clarke bites her lip, thinking of Bellamy’s heated reaction just to seeing her in her pyjamas in the comfort of her own home, the desire in his eyes kindled by nothing more than a faded old t-shirt and bare feet. She can’t even imagine what his reaction would be to her getting dressed up and sneaking out to a party, her body laid out on display for people - for _boys_ \- that aren’t him.

Or maybe she can.

She clenches her thighs together at the thought of it.

The music is drowned out by the roar of the hairdryer as O starts on styling her hair, Clarke approaching the closet with unenthusiasm. She already knows that she doesn’t have anything to wear - her clothes, like her, caught in that messy _not quite_ stage of teenagehood, denim cut-offs and skimpy crop tops sitting uneasily alongside pleated skirts and knee-length collared dresses, faded relics of childhood interspersed with hasty, soon-regretted moments of over-confidence.

Not seeing many options, she pulls out a plain sleeveless black dress, chewing her lip as she considers it. It could work. More like a long tank top than a real dress, made out of some kind of stretchy cotton material, she usually wears it over leggings and under a cardigan at home, the fabric clinging to her body like a second skin. It’s tighter, shorter than anything she’d normally wear out, but she guesses that maybe tonight she could make an exception.

Efficiently stripping out of her pyjamas, Clarke pulls on the dress, tugging it down over her thighs and stepping back to regard herself critically in the mirror. It’s definitely more…revealing that she remembers it being before, her new bra pushing the neckline to the limit, the contour of her waist and hips plainly visible without a thick cardigan to help disguise her shape. Turning to get a profile view, her eyes widen comically, almost bugging out of her skull. She’s not sure what’s more obscene - her breasts almost spilling out of the top of the dress, or how tightly the material hugs her ass, more like body paint than fabric.

There’s no way that she can wear this.

“That’s perfect,” O shouts over the noise of the hairdryer. She gives Clarke a thumbs up.

Clarke swallows heavily.

It’s not exactly a comfortable silence in the room - the loud music and the butterflies in Clarke’s stomach make sure of that - but it’s still nice to get ready with her best friend, to reclaim at least some semblance of teenage girl normalcy in their relationship. Sitting down at the desk, she brushes out and carefully replaits her hair, watching out of the corner of her eye as Octavia gives herself an expert blow-out and applies a full face of make-up, finishing by blowing a showgirl kiss to the mirror, winking at Clarke, who quickly looks away.

“You next.”

Clarke remains sitting down, obediently letting herself be manhandled, silently acquiescing as O turns her face this way and that, putting out her hand to hold various palettes and jars, closing her eyes and parting her lips in turn. She freezes whenever Octavia leans in too close - directing her gaze to to a point on the far wall just above the other girl’s left shoulder, not allowing herself to even _think_ about looking down the shadowy valley of her cleavage - but there’s no defense against the soft scent of her friend’s warm skin, the heady mix of hairspray and perfume, slowly seeping into her mind like smoke.

“Done,” Octavia announces triumphantly, finally leaning back. Clarke’s eyes slowly flutter open, coming back to reality reluctantly. “We’ve got different skin tones, so I couldn’t do your base properly, but it’ll do.”

She turns to look at herself in the mirror as Octavia busies herself putting everything away. Despite her disclaimer, O has somehow managed to turn Clarke into a completely different person, baby face melting away to reveal a grown-up with defined cheekbones, arched brows and pouting lips. Her eyes seem to take up fully half of her face with their extravagant black lashes, rich copper eyeshadow bringing out the colour of her irises so they appear a bright electric blue, almost alien in their intensity. She loves it as much as she hates it - aside from the fake eyelashes, which she just plain hates, eyes already itching and irritated.

Octavia’s phone goes off.

“Steve’s on his way,” she says, checking her messages. “Stand up, let me look at you.”

Clarke stands up, submitting herself for Octavia’s careful inspection, shifting her weight awkwardly as she awaits the final verdict.

Her friend whistles appreciatively. “You. Look. Hot. Although…” She tilts her head, eyes narrowing.

“What?” Clarke asks anxiously, smoothing the dress down over her hips, plucking at the hem where it sits on her thighs. “Do I look fat?”

Octavia rolls her eyes, having no time for any of Clarke’s insecurities. “Shut up. Do a spin for me?”

Clarke turns slowly and without enthusiasm, making sure to keep her tummy sucked in.

“Yeah…” Octavia says, screwing up her mouth, bringing her hand up to her chin. “You can totally see your panties through that dress.”

“What?” Flummoxed, Clarke twists round to try and see over her shoulder, like a dog chasing its own tail. “I do?”

“Uh huh,” the other girl confirms, raising her eyebrows. “Sorry.”

“Should I get changed?” Clarke asks anxiously, looking at Octavia. “I don’t have anything else to wear…”

O shrugs. “Just take them off, I guess.”

“What?”

“Your panties.” Octavia’s tone is casual, nonchalant, although she won’t meet Clarke’s eyes. Turning away, she grabs one of the bags hanging on the back of the door, bending to sort through the make-up scattered over the desk. “People do it all the time. Celebrities never wear underwear on the red carpet, it spoils the line.”

“They do?” Clarke’s not sure that sounds right - and even if it is, there’s a whole world of difference between Hollywood and a house party, between wearing a floor-length designer gown for the benefit of the world’s adoring media and a minidress for an eager audience of groping teenage boys. Leaving the house without panties just doesn’t feel like something that someone would actually _do_ in real life. It’s a cliché, a plot point in a sleazy schoolgirl porno, the go-to masturbatory fantasy of every adolescent boy and frustrated middle-aged businessman, imagining running their hand up beneath a pleated skirt and hitting nothing but skin and warm, silky-wet heaven.

It’s just so… _easy_.

O looks at her and sighs, holding out an impatient hand. “Go on, just take them off.” When Clarke doesn’t move, she clicks her fingers, gesturing in frustration. “ _Clarke_.”

Not knowing what else to do, held fast under the weight of her friend’s demanding gaze, Clarke’s hands slowly go to her panties, hesistantly pulling them down her thighs while Octavia watches. She lets go of them around her knees and they flutter silently to the floor - bending down to pick them up, she meekly places them in Octavia’s outstretched hand.

Octavia’s hand closes into a fist, crumpling the delicate fabric.

“Spin again?”

Clarke obliges, blood rushing hot and fierce to her cheeks at the feel of nothing but cool air rushing between her thighs, shivering over the delicately swollen flesh. Suddenly she falters, breath stuttering as memory slams into her, echoing remnants of past desire yet so vivid and immediate that she almost stumbles, overcome.

_Bellamy, seated before her, his large, calloused hand gently cupping her cunt through her leggings as she rocks against his palm, the dark look on his face as he stares up at her, at once both violent and tenderly possessive._

“Perfect.” Octavia smiles.

\- -

Steve doesn’t ring the doorbell when he arrives. Instead he messages Octavia that he’s there, and the girls traipse down the stairs to find him loitering outside the kitchen door, waiting to be let in.

“Hey baby,” he drawls when O opens the door, faux-casually leaning with one arm against the doorframe. Safely hidden from sight behind her friend, Clarke wrinkles her nose in disgust.

“Hi,” Octavia replies coly, her voice high and breathy.

“Mmm…you look hot,” Steve says, leaning back to check out Octavia’s outfit. He catches his lower lip in his teeth, releasing it slowly with a wet noise that turns Clarke’s stomach. “You gonna kiss me hello?”

The resulting kiss is both long and sloppy, Clarke forced to look away as Steve’s hands go straight for her best friend’s ass, long fingers digging into her buttocks and pulling her up tight against him, Octavia flinging her arms around his neck in response. Whatever heat she felt the other night watching them kiss is completely gone, distance apparently having been a key factor. Close up, there’s nothing erotic about seeing Steve clumsily lick into O’s mouth, slanting his head in what looks like a bid to get his entire tongue down her throat, Octavia discretely wiping her mouth after they finally separate.

“You don’t have to sneak in,” Octavia says, looking up at him adoringly, her hand stroking his chest. “I told you, my brother’s out tonight.”

“Whatever, babe,” Steve says defiantly, although Clarke notices how he shifts nervously at the mention of Bellamy, his eyes darting to the doorway like he expects the older man to appear at any moment. “I’m not scared of your brother.”

His eyes land on Clarke, finally noticing that she’s in the room too, gaze dropping to her breasts instantly and predictably. “Clarke! Good to see you again.”

She nods hello, waiting for him to turn back to Octavia before adjusting her dress, pulling up the neckline where it’s already started to slip, exposing the top of her lacy bra.

“So ladies, shall we get this party started?”

Octavia’s eyes light up as Steve reaches into his jacket and pulls out a small silver flask. She grabs it from him immediately, unscrewing the cap and tipping her head back to take a long swig, throat working as she swallows. Steve smiles, watching her, his arm coming up to loop around her shoulders.

Clarke’s eyes widen. As far as she knows, she and Octavia have exactly the same drinking experience - that is to say, almost none, aside from the very occasional sip of a beer under their big brother’s watchful eye, Bellamy laughing as they wrinkled their noses and stuck out their tongues in disgust. And yet here her best friend is, chugging from a hip flask like a pro, smiling when she finally lowers it, no more visibly affected than if she’d been drinking water.

She passes the flask to Clarke, who takes a hesistant sniff of the contents, instantly regretting it as the coarse stench of cheap alcohol burns the delicate inside of her nose. “What is it?” she asks Steve warily.

Octavia rolls her eyes. “Don’t mind her,” she informs Steve, leaning into his body, her arm snaking around his waist. “Clarke doesn’t like fun.”

“I can be fun,” Clarke insists defensively, her hand tightening around the flask.

Steve grins at her. “It’s Red Label.” He winks at Octavia, leaning down to nuzzle against her temple as she giggles inanely. No need to worry about the alcohol - Clarke feels plenty sick already. “Nothing but the best for my girl, ain’t that right?”

Clarke has no idea what he’s talking about, but she smiles politely back anyway, sensing that he wants her to be impressed. Raising the flask in a mock salute to her friend, she takes a large gulp, coughing and almost choking as it sears its way down her throat. Octavia giggles again.

“Good stuff, huh?” Steve says, taking back the flask and taking his own long sip. He swallows down a cough of his own, clearly wanting to impress Octavia, eyes visibly watering as he continues, his voice tight. “You can always rely on Johnny.”

Clarke nods, still coughing.

“Shall we go?’ Octavia suggests cheerily.

Clarke puts on her strappy black heels - higher than she’s ever worn before, courtesy of O - and makes her unsteady way out to the car alongside the couple. She feels a little light-headed from the alcohol, and the driveway isn’t the most even surface, so perhaps it’s not surprising when she stumbles on the gravel, arms cartwheeling wildly in the air as she fights to regain her balance.

“Whoa there.”

Suddenly Steve’s hand is there at the small of her back, helping to steady her. She expects him to pull away once both her feet are back on solid ground, but instead he lingers, his hand resting just a little bit too low for comfort, not quite on her ass but not quite _not_ on her ass either.

“Be careful,” he winks down at her.

Clarke looks over to Octavia, but she hasn’t noticed anything, too busy checking her make-up in her phone.

She opens her mouth, ready to tell Steve to get away from her, rudeness be damned, but just as suddenly as it appeared his hand is gone, and he’s walking away.

\- -

It doesn’t take long to get to the party, especially with the way that Steve drives, fast enough to make Clarke double-check that her seatbealt is properly fastened. She stares out of the back window, the dizzying rush of buildings and scenery flashing past still less nauseating than the view of Steve and Octavia up front, playfighting over the radio and giving each other heart eyes. Steve’s hand doesn’t leave Octavia’s leg the whole way there, his meaty palm gripping her slender thigh, although Clarke supposes she should be grateful that at least his hand stays in plain sight, rather than disappearing somewhere between her friend’s legs.

They park up a couple of streets away from the house, and Clarke scrambles out of the car before Steve can offer to help her out, making sure to get out of the opposite side, as far away from him as possible. She yanks at her dress, which rode up alarmingly on the car ride. Which won’t stop riding up, actually.

“So, it’s a bit embarrassing, but, uh…” Steve slams the car door and scratches the back of his head, looking down at the floor in that annoying way that’s meant to convey humility but tends to indicate the exact opposite. “You might hear people calling me by a different name tonight.”

“What are you talking about?” Octavia asks, blunt as ever.

“The guys having this party - they’re friends of my brother - we play a lot of Xbox online, and I’ve got a bit of a rep. So, uh, they like to call me ‘Atom’. It’s stupid, I’ve asked them not to, but what can I say?” Steve shrugs. “It seems to have stuck.”

He looks to Octavia for her approval, and Clarke takes advantage of his distraction to pull a face in his directioin. God, just when she thought he couldn’t get any more pathetic.

She hears Octavia snort, and looks up to find her friend watching her, laughing at her expression. They share a secret smile as Steve sets off towards the house, still talking about drop zones or hit points or something equally pointless, glancing back briefly to check that they’re following him. O winds her arm through Clarke’s, pulling her in close, and they walk to the house together, Clarke moving much easier with her friend there to lean on.

The house looks completely unremarkable from the outside, no noise audible from the street, nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the large, slightly outdated properties on the block. They walk straight in through the unlocked door, Steve leading the way through the house to the kitchen.

Clarke looks around curiously. She’s not sure exactly what she expected from her first house party, but this isn’t quite it. After all the raucous teenage gatherings she’s seen on television and in movies, she’d expected to have to fight her way through crowds of undulating, half-naked bodies, having to shout to make herself heard over blaring music, heavy baseline vibrating through her bones as she narrowly dodged a fool’s line-up of increasingly sleazy guys. Instead she’s strangely deflated to see that the house isn’t anywhere near full, barely more than a handful of people scattered through the rooms chatting and laughing, music playing at a respectable volume in the living room where a small group is hanging out on the couches, more interested in the chips and dip than dancing.

She can’t see a single person doing a keg stand.

There’s a a couple of guys talking by the stairs, holding identical red cups - _at least the movies got one part right,_ she thinks to herself - and they look up, falling silent as she and Octavia walk past. They’re older, definitely high school seniors if not in college already, and Clarke is unnerved by the naked interest in their eyes, the lazy, unashamed way that they check out her body, lingering on her chest. She shudders, her skin crawling, and huddles closer to O, suddenly reminded that she’s not wearing any panties. Turns out that getting ogled at a house party is just as creepy as getting ogled anywhere else.

The kitchen is at least livelier than the rest of the house, if just as nerve-wracking, crowded with a large group of people drinking and talking, casually standing or slouching against the counters, joyfully shouting to be heard over one another in the cramped, overfull space. Heart sinking, Clarke sees that everyone in the group is much older than her, and that they all already seem to know each other, body language relaxed and open as they swig from red cups or bottles of beer. As she watches, one guy wraps his arm around a girl’s shoulders, leaning down to whisper in her ear before she rolls her eyes and shoves him away, the entire room erupting into laughter and good-natured jeering. Another boy, perched jauntily on the counter next to the fridge, is wearing nothing but plaid pyjama pants and slippers, dishevelled hair a clear giveaway that he’s just gotten out of bed. It doesn’t feel like they’re walking into a party so much as interrupting a private hangout.

_Fuck_ , Clarke thinks. Discretely she checks her phone, seeing that it’s only just gone 8pm. _Are we early?_

“Hi guys,” Steve says loudly, boldly walking right up to the group. “How’s it going?”

Silence abruptly descends over the room, a drawn-out pause before one guy eventually turns around to check out the teenage intruders. He’s tall, broader even than Bellamy, with shaggy dark hair and deep-set eyes that sweep briefly and disinterestedly over Octavia and Clarke before he addresses Steve.

“Hey, er…” he says, clearly having less than no idea who the teenage boy is.

Clarke cringes, wanting to fall through the floor with embarrassment, but Steve is happily oblivious, his smile wide and obnoxious.

“Atom,” he helpfully supplies.

“Oh yeah, uh…Jason’s brother, right? Good to see you, man,” the older man replies unconvincingly.

“And _this_ is Octavia, my girlfriend,” Steve says eagerly, grabbing O’s hand and wrenching her away from Clarke, dragging the petite girl up against his side. She smiles awkwardly at the group.

A round of stilted introductions follow as Clarke melts back against the counter, not sure if she’s disappointed or relieved to be left out entirely. She feigns disinterest to cover her discomfort, taking her time to slowly look around the kitchen, absorbing even the smallest and most insignificant details like she’s never seen anything so fascinating, from the bags of chips scattered randomly across the counters to the almost empty drinks table pushed up against the far wall, holding nothing but stacks of red cups and some sad-looking, uncut limes.

After what feels like thirty minutes but is probably closer to thirty seconds, Clarke looks up to find one of the guys in the group staring right at her, pallid blue eyes unblinking as he raises his beer to his lips and takes a slow pull. He’s pale, with strong, angular features, dark brown hair slicked back over his head like a long-lost member of the Trump family, something about him instantly and intensely aggravating. She lifts her chin, staring back defiantly until he grudgingly drops his gaze, pulling out his phone.

Ignored once again, it doesn’t take much longer for the humiliated feeling to start to build in her chest, Clarke chewing her lip as she swallows against the lump in her throat, furiously blinking away the tears that threaten to spill from her already irritated eyes. It’s hot in the kitchen with so many people in such a small room, and she wants something to drink but she has no idea of the etiquette, and her feet hurt in the too-small shoes, and Octavia doesn’t look back at her once, no matter how hard Clarke stares at the back of her head, willing her best friend to remember her existence.

She needs to get out of here.

With one last bitter, longing glance at Octavia, Clarke walks over to the big sliding glass doors at the back of the kitchen, quietly slipping outside onto the back porch. Pulling the door shut behind her, she takes a grateful gulp of the cool night air, crossing her arms over her chest as she looks up into the dark sky.

“Well, well, well,” a voice lazily drawls from somewhere to her left. “And who, pray tell, is this young damsel?”

Startled, Clarke spins around, only to be met by the unexpected sight of a small circle of people sitting around on battered garden furniture, five pairs of eyes all staring questioningly up at her. One boy, sprawled sideways across a white plastic garden hair, too-long brown hair falling messily into his eyes, grins manically as he gestures at her, a cigarette held tightly between his index and middle fingers.

“Your name, milady?”

_Princess_ , she corrects mentally.

“Clarke,” she says, looking around warily. Whoever this group is, they seem far less intimidating than the people in the kitchen, despite their strange choice in leader.

“Well, _Clarke_.” The boy’s eyes cross as he looks upwards, trying to blow his hair out of his eyes, fringe fluttering upwards for a second before falling back exactly where it was before. “What offerings do you lay before the party gods?”

“Offerings?”

“Knock it off, Jasper,” the boy to his left mutters darkly. He looks East Asian, with short black hair and what Clarke can somehow already tell is permanently exasperated expression. Reaching over, he deftly plucks the cigarette from between Jasper’s slender fingers, ignoring his scandalised look, leaning back and taking a deep drag. His voice is tight when he continues. “It’s way too early for your nonsense.”

“Your offerings, my dear young lady,” Jasper continues unabashed, narrowing his eyes at his friend before he directs his attention back to Clarke. “Your payment, to join our small yet illustrious group of deliquents, wenches, and _depraved knaves_.” He rolles the last couple of words around his mouth, clearly enjoying the rhyme.

“Call me a wench again, and I’ll slap you,” one of the girls in the group rebukes him. She’s pretty, with dark blonde hair artfully arranged into intricate French fishtail braids that make Clarke feel ashamed of her own messy pigtails, hand darting up to touch them self-consciously. “Ignore him, sweetie,” she instructs Clarke firmly. “Come sit with us. Monty, move up.”

The grouchy guy shuffles up the garden bench, the blonde girl scooting up close next to him and patting the newly empty space next to her, encouraging Clarke forward. “Come on.”

Timidly making her way over, Clarke perches on the end of the bench, knees drawn primly together, hands folded neatly in her lap. It’s only once she’s sat down, looking nervously around at the group, that she finally notices it - the distinctive, sweet-acrid smell of cannabis, familiar from back alleys and bleachers everywhere, following in the wake of every suspiciously red-eyed, lethargic teenage boy at school.

She eyes the ‘cigarette’ warily, noting that it’s hand-rolled.

“So, I’m Harper,” the friendly girl says, Clarke’s attention snapping back to her. “This stud next to me is Monty, my boyfriend. And you’ve already met Jasper, over there on the end.”

Clarke nods politely to the two boys as Harper introduces them, smiling when Jasper twists in his seat to do a little half-bow in her direction, almost falling face-first out of his chair in the process. For a second it looks like he might hit the deck, plastic chair creaking ominously as he valiantly struggles to sit back up, but he’s saved by a dark haired girl sat in the chair next to him, who swiftly puts out a steadying hand, helping him regain his balance.

“That’s Maya, Jasper’s girlfriend,” Harper continues, gesturing to the dark haired girl, who momentarily looks away from Jasper to smile and wave shyly at Clarke.

“Hi,” Maya says. She shrugs her shoulders helplessly. “Like Harper said, just ignore my boyfriend.”

“Hey!” the boy in question protests indignantly. He opens his mouth, clearly intending to continue arguing his case, but is thankfully distracted by Monty tapping his ankle to get his attention, leaning over and passing the joint back to him.

Harper bends in close to Clarke’s ear, whispering, “Maya is a _saint,_ honestly.”

Clarke stifles a giggle.

“And then this is Gaia.”

There’s an edge to Harper’s voice as she introduces the last member of their group, but Clarke hardly registers it, too caught up in staring at the beautiful girl sat opposite her. Gaia is stunning, with flawless light brown skin and closely cropped peroxide hair, light glinting off an elaborate silver septum nose ring and dozens of tiny piercings trailing along the outside of her ear, too many delicate hoops and studs to count, a deliberate cacophony of gold and silver. Her eyes, large and expressive, are shadowed and outlined in various expertly blended shades of dark purple and violet, her lips painted matte black, the kind of dramatic, theatrical make-up that Clarke has only ever seen in fashion magazines and YouTube tutorials, almost surreal to encounter at an ordinary Friday night house party.

Gaia doesn’t react as Clarke shyly waves hello, cooly regarding the younger girl with blank disinterest, her gaze somehow both closed and challenging at the same time, something familiar about it that tugs at the edge of Clarke’s mind, a prickling sense of deja-vu creeping up her spine.

Clarke shifts on the bench, going to cross her legs but catching herself at the last second, forcing herself to keep both feet on the ground, squeezing her thighs tightly together.

“So, who are you here with?” Harper asks. “I can’t even imagine what boy would be stupid enough to let you out of their sight.”

Clarke reluctantly tears herself away from Gaia, looking around at the rest of the group.

“Atom,” she replies, to a sea of blank faces. “Um…Steve?” she clarifies, and a groan runs through the circle.

“That guy,” Monty says, shaking his head. “I can’t even remember how we ended up getting stuck with him. What an utter jackass. Don’t tell me you’re his girlfriend?”

She shakes her head.

“Thank god,” Harper says. She bumps Clarke with her elbow, grinning conspiratorially. “I can already tell that you’re far too good for a loser like him.”

Clarke smiles uneasily.

The conversation moves swiftly on - too swiftly for Clarke, who struggles to follow along, not having anything to contribute to their heated discussions about sadistic college professors and punishing class schedules, not knowing any of the mutual friends that they gossip about. She smiles politely whenever they laugh, refusing the joint when Maya offers it to her, hands fiddling with the hem of her dress, restricting herself to the occasional stolen glance at the mysterious Gaia. The older girl doesn’t smile once, not that she sees anyway, expression cycling through boredom to annoyance to apathy and back again, her obvious displeasure setting Clarke on edge, like she’s somehow responsible for the emotional state of a complete stranger.

The night deepens around them, the couples gradually drawing closer as the sky slowly darkens. Harper tucks herself neatly under Monty’s arm, her head resting on his shoulder, Jasper and Maya’s interlaced hands hanging loosely between their chairs. Clarke politely averts her eyes, a sharp pang of loneliness twisting through her as she thinks longingly of Bellamy’s warm smile, the comforting low rumble of his voice, the feel of his strong arms around her.

_Not that we could be like them anyway_ , she thinks, watching as Monty casually kisses his girlfriend’s forehead, Harper’s brow crinkling as she yawns widely, snuggling closer into him. _Not that anyone can even know that we’re together._

Clarke stares down at her lap, hugging her arms around herself, feeling the chill of the cold night air against her exposed skin.

“How’d you end up coming here with Steve?”

“Hmm?” Clarke looks up at Monty, distracted.

“How’d you end up coming here with that dick?” Monty’s words are harsh, but his tone is deadpan, his face relaxed and easy. “If you’re not going out with him?”

“Who cares?”

Gaia’s voice is low and husky, laced through with smoke, but it still cuts through the conversation like a knife, the first thing that she’s said all night. Clarke looks up at her nervously, heart thumping in her chest.

“We all know _exactly_ why she’s here,” Gaia continues, fixing Clarke with a bold, unflinching stare, carefully enunciating every syllable. _Fresh meat_.”

She lets her eyes drop meaningfully to Clarke’s chest, raising a single derisive eyebrow.

The whole group falls silent.

“Um…” For the second time that night Clarke feels herself tearing up, face heating with embarrassment. “I should go…find my friend inside. She’ll be wondering where I am.”

She scrambles up from the bench, forgetting about her ridiculous heels, lurching dangerously forwards before she gets her balance. Gaia leans back and away from her, tucking her legs under her chair, a disdainful expression on her face like she’s looking at something truly pathetic, as if she can’t imagine anything worse than Clarke touching her, even accidentally.

“Don’t go,” Harper says, pushing away her boyfriend’s arm and sitting up. “Gaia, what the fuck?” she hisses angrily.

Gaia shrugs.

“No, really, I…” Clarke looks around at everyone’s stunned faces and trails off. “It was nice to meet you,” she finishes miserably, already turning to walk back towards the house.

“Clarke - ” Maya calls out. “Wait!”

Not even trying to pretend anymore, Clarke practically runs back to the house, yanking desperately at the sliding door and stepping back into the noisy kitchen, fighting back a sob as she pulls the door shut behind her, leaning forward to rest her forehead against the cold glass. She closes her eyes, not daring to look outside, knowing that the sight of their horrified, pitying expressions will open the floodgates, not wanting to break down into tears in the middle of a complete stranger’s kitchen.

One low exhale, and then she straightens up again, pressing her lips firmly together to stop them quivering, wiping under her eyes with the back of her hand. Her false eyelashes itch more than ever, but at least it gives her something to concentrate on, a welcome distraction from the embarrassment still coursing through her, the shame that still burns hot in her cheeks as she turns around to face the room.

Clarke doesn’t know how long she was out on the porch, but apparently it was long enough for the party to get properly started, the kitchen absolutely crammed with people drinking, music pumping through the house from the front room, loud enough that she can feel the vibrations in her chest. It’s hot and close, even worse than it was earlier, condensation steaming up the windows and dripping down the walls, and the noise is almost overwhelming, loud shouts and laughter wherever she turns. Not that any of it makes any difference to her. Once again, she’s all alone.

There’s no sign of Octavia or Steve in the kitchen. Clarke checks her phone - no messages, from anyone. Her thumb hovers over Bellamy’s name for a moment before she turns her phone screen off, slipping it back into her bag.

She wanders aimlessly over to the drinks table, which is full now, sticky surface littered with empty red cups and cans, a few bottles of cheap vodka and rum, labels vaguely familiar from her childhood, that distant time when Aurora was still around. Someone’s set up a beer keg in a bucket next to the table, packed tightly around with ice, hose hanging listlessly off to the side. Clarke wrinkles her nose. She’s never liked beer.

“If you’re looking for wine coolers, we’re all out I’m afraid,” Monty says, suddenly appearing at her elbow.

She ignores him, looking down at the table, using the tip of her index finger to carefully trace over a circular water stain on the wood.

“I’m sorry about Gaia,” he says quietly, close enough that she can hear him clearly despite the loud party going on around them. “She’s…difficult. By which I mean, she’s a bitch.”

Clarke shrugs, her mouth tightening. She can’t hear it, but she can tell by the movement of his shoulders that he sighs.

“So…” he persists, gesturing to the drinks table. “What’s your poison?”

She glances up at him. “I don’t know. I’ve never really drunk before.”

Monty sighs again. “Of course you haven’t. And I’m guessing you didn’t bring any alcohol with you?”

Clarke shakes her head. Despite her best efforts to remain composed, she feels her lower lip start to quiver dangerously.

“How old are you anyway? Actually, wait,” Monty puts his hands up, palms wide. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Luckily for you, people tend to mind their booze getting stolen _slightly_ less when it’s a cute girl doing it. Don’t ask me why.”

She can’t help but smile at that, even if it’s a little wobbly. “What do you recommend I steal?”

Monty casts a disparaging eye over the table. “None of this paint stripper.” He looks at her assessingly. “Can you keep a secret?”

_Better than you could ever imagine_ , Clarke thinks. She nods.

“Come on, I’ll show you where the good stuff’s kept.”

Monty leads the way across the kitchen to the fridge freezer, easily cutting through the crowds of people, Clarke following curiously in his wake. She hovers awkwardly nearby as he opens the freezer door, unceremoniously dislodging the amorous couple that had been kissing up against it, and crouches down to pull out the bottom drawer, digging through bags of frozen vegetables and pre-made smoothie mix to retrieve a dark blue glass bottle, handling it with the same amount of care and attention that one might normally bestow upon a newborn baby.

“Here,” he says reverently, handing the bottle up to her. It’s so cold that it burns her hands, the glass already starting to sweat in the warm room, and she cradles it carefully against her chest, worried about dropping it.

“That,” Monty says, standing up and kicking the freezer door shut, “is some _very_ good vodka. Really, you should be drinking it neat, but for you I guess I’ll have to make an exception. Come on.”

Clarke stands next to him at the counter, gratefully setting the cold bottle down. Working efficiently, Monty retrieves two glasses from the wall cabinet above her head, pouring a generous inch into the first glass, and then, looking at her wryly, a much smaller amount into the second glass, which he then tops almost to the brim with lemonade.

“I hope you realise that this is sacrilege,” he says, handing the mixed drink over to her. “There you go. How does sacrilege taste?”

It tastes just like lemonade, cool and refreshing with only a very slight bitter aftertaste. Clarke smiles, feeling the pressure in her chest start to dissipate, the lump in her throat dissolving away. “It’s good. Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Monty lifts his own glass to her in salute. “Cheers.”

\- -

“Two gin and tonics, please,” the blonde girl says, crossing her arms on the bar, leaning over low enough that Bellamy can see right down her top, getting an eyeful of her tits and her black lacy bra.

“Your wish is my command,” he replies, setting two glasses on the bar. “Well gin alright?”

“Whatever you want,” she says, biting her lip coyly, bending over a little further.

Bellamy smiles, hoping that it doesn’t look as forced as it feels, halfway through his shift and face already sore from hours of making nice with customers. “Double, yeah?”

She nods.

He measures out the gin, looking up to find the girl closely watching his every move, shooting her a flirtatious wink to make her smile. She’s pretty, beautiful even, with sultry blue eyes and perfectly curled blonde hair, tight little body poured into even tighter jeans. Bellamy slides the drinks over the bar, inhaling her perfume as he leans in - a delicate floral scent, obviously expensive even to his untrained nose.

The girl puts down the cash for the drinks, topping it with a generous tip and a folded bar napkin. She taps the napkin with one French manicured fingernail, raising an arched eyebrow. “For later.”

She picks up the drinks and walks back to her table, hips swaying suggestively, casting Bellamy a lascivious look back over her shoulder. He grins, picking up the napkin with her phone number, making sure that she sees him tucking it into his back pocket. The girls on her table all lean in conspiratorially as she sits down, the group erupting into loud giggles.

A year ago, Bellamy would have taken her up on her offer, leading her out to the back alley behind the bar, sinking to his knees on the cold concrete as she unbuttoned her jeans with eagerly fumbling fingers, listening to her strangled groan as he licked her open, the soft thud of her head falling back against the filthy brick wall. Or maybe it would have been the staff bathroom, gently turning her away to bend over the cracked sink, leaning back to watch his cock sink deep into the pink of her wet cunt. If she was really lucky, he might even have snuck her home with him, his hand over her mouth to keep her from disturbing the girls, waking her up at 6am to get her out of the house before Clarke woke up.

Now, he barely even sees her, and what he does see is blurred, incomplete, refracted through the distorted lens of his love for Clarke, unable to stop himself from comparing every girl to her, finding them all sorely wanting. This girl’s hair, shiny and bouncy and soft, clearly isn’t naturally blonde; her almond-shaped, ice blue eyes are nowhere near as large or bright as Clarke’s; even her suggestive smile seems forced and obvious, compared to his girl’s shy, obliviously arousing charm.

Now, all he does is smile for tips and count the seconds until he can get back home again.

Bellamy looks around the bar, thankful for the sudden lull in orders after a crazy first couple of hours. He catches the eye of Echo, their new starter, expertly drawing a pint of one of their craft beers.

“Okay?” he mouthes at her.

She nods briskly, expression not changing.

Fuck, but she’s hard work. Their induction earlier had taken at least twice as long as usual, Bellamy repeating each piece of information two or three times just to try and get a noticeable reaction, some indication of whether she’d understood or not, her blank face giving nothing away. When he’d heard that their new bartender was called ‘Echo’, he’d expected to be working alongside some bubbly, obnoxiously cheerful hippy girl, not this stoic supermodel.

He could say that he has no idea how she makes enough tips to survive as a bartender, but from the number of guys craning their necks to check out her ass every time she turns away from the bar, it’s obvious that the ice queen act works for her.

Bellamy gestures towards the back, indicating that he’s gonna take a quick break, and Echo nods again.

It’s the first chance that he’s had all night for a breather, and he takes his time, trying and failing to tidy his unruly hair in the smudged mirror above the sink, grabbing a bottle of water from the staff mini fridge and downing it before throwing the empty into the recycling. His jacket is hanging on a hook by the back door, and he rifles one-handed through the pockets to check his phone, more out of habit than anything. It’s been a while since he really had to worry about leaving the girls at home alone, but there’s still the chance of a message from Clarke, maybe even a selfie if he’s lucky.

As it happens, he does have a message, from a couple of hours ago. But it’s not from Clarke.

<<Ur sister looks hot>>

Bellamy scowls, checking the sender. _John Murphy_.

He hasn’t heard that name for years. Not since high school, where they’d violently clashed for years before gradually developing, if not exactly a friendship, at least some measure of grudging respect for one another, two kids with equally chaotic homes and the same wary, prematurely cynical worldview. If he’d thought of Murphy at all in the intervening years, it was only to wonder which prison he’d ended up in.

<<Get off my sister’s Instagram, Murphy>>

Still scowling, he shuts off his phone screen, intending to put it back in his pocket, but the screen immediately lights up again with a string of replies, like Murphy’s just been waiting next to his phone for Bellamy’s response all this time.

<<Not on insta>>

<<Right in front of me>>

<<House party>>

Bellamy stares in disbelief.

_House party._

He’s still gaping at his phone when a final message comes through from Murphy - an address. Bellamy doesn’t recognise the street, but he knows the general area from his own days at high school, close to a college campus and overrun with students, roads full of large houses just rundown enough to be affordable on a budget. And he knows all too well the crowd that Murphy hangs out with, the kind of scumbags he calls friends, not a single of whom he’d trust anywhere near his teenage sister.

What the fuck is Octavia playing at? And why didn’t Clarke message him, tell him that O had left her all alone in the house?

Bellamy calls his sister’s mobile, swearing viciously when it rings out, going to voicemail. He hangs up, not bothering to leave a message, knowing that she’ll just ignore it. He tries Clarke, but her phone goes to voicemail too - knowing his girl, she’s fast asleep in bed already.

Just in case, he messages them both.

<<Call me now>>

He paces, frustrated, resisting the overwhelming urge to put his fist through the wall.

Bellamy’s never been much of a partier. Busy juggling the triple pressures of work, school and childcare, his younger years hadn’t provided many opportunities to go out and get wrecked, saving every spare moment and cent to spend on the girls rather than himself. Like so many other things that his peers took for granted, the wholesale abandonment of his responsibilities for anything so frivolous as fun was a luxury that he simply couldn’t afford, a concept just as alien and remote as the idea of having two supportive parents, a stable home, a college fund.

There’s a reason why he’s met the majority of his girlfriends and hook-ups through work, and it’s a brutally efficient one.

Regardless, Bellamy is neither a saint nor a recluse, and while the vast majority of his teenage nights might have been spent folding laundry and checking homework, he’s still been to enough house parties for his blood to run cold at the idea of his fifteen year-old sister being at one. He doesn’t even need to use his imagination to think of all the ways that it could go wrong, all the things that could happen to her, not with his panicked, treacherous mind happily supplying him with hazy, alcohol-soaked memories - closely packed, dimly lit rooms throbbing to the beat of music and teenage hormones, young girls getting sloppy drunk on their first real taste of liquor, corridors lined with eager guys just waiting for their opportunity to pounce, hyped up on a dangerous mix of booze, nerves and blind bravado. The thought that Octavia could be somewhere like that, could be one of those girls, stumbling drunk and vulnerable and alone, with no one there to look after her, to protect her, is…

Unbearable.

Or even worse, not alone. With Steve.

Bellamy stops, putting his hands up to his face as he tries to think.

He can’t do this. How can he stay here, mindlessly mixing drinks and making nice with customers, when he has no idea where his baby sister is, who she’s with, what she’s doing? If she’s even safe?

Mind made up, Bellamy marches straight through to the back office, not bothering to knock before he pushes open the door. 

He likes Byrna, the bar owner. A Marine Corps veteran, some of the other staff think that she’s a stone-cold bitch, put off by her blunt manner and no-nonsense approach to management, but Bellamy’s worked for enough truly bad bosses to appreciate the value of knowing where he stands. With Diyoza, you get out exactly what you put in, and the two of them have always gotten along just fine.

“Byrna, you got a sec?”

“Not really.” She doesn’t look up from her laptop, hunched awkwardly over her desk, squinting through her glasses at something on the screen. “Problem with Echo?”

“No, she’s doing great. Just, uh…” Bellamy pauses, swallowing heavily. “I gotta go.”

Byrna looks up at that, eyebrows drawing together as she frowns. “You’re kidding me,” she says flatly, clearly unimpressed.

“It’s my sister,” Bellamy offers by way of explanation, waving his phone at her. “She’s not feeling too great, and I need to make sure that she’s okay.”

“She better be dying for you to be walking out on a Friday night shift.”

Bellamy smiles tightly.

_If she’s not dying, I’ll kill her._

“I know it’s not great timing.”

“I never realised that you were such a comedian, Blake.”

“I don’t have any other choice,” Bellamy presses, letting just a little bit of his desperation bleed into his voice. Every second that he wastes here is another second that his sister could be in danger, his mind whirling with endless possibilities, from the terrifying to the mundane. “It’s just me and O, I don’t have anyone else to look after her.”

Byrna leans back, pushing her glasses up over her forehead, looking at him closely. He’s never worked out exactly how old she is, anywhere from late thirties to early fifties, but she’s got the shrewd, calculating eyes of someone who’s seen way too much shit, and when she looks at him like this he finds himself uncomfortably aware that she’s probably killed people before. Like, a lot of people.

“Remind me how old your sister is?”

“Fifteen.”

She taps her pen on the desk, considering. It feels like the longest few seconds of Bellamy’s life, taking everything he has to just stand there and wait patiently for Byrna’s reply, his entire body almost vibrating with tension, his jaw feeling like it’s about ready to snap with how hard he’s clenching it.

“Fine,” Byrna says eventually. “Get out of here.”

“Thanks,” he says, relieved. “I appreciate it.”

“You better.” She turns her attention back to her laptop, taking off her glasses and putting them back on her nose. “Just don’t make a habit out of it.”

“I won’t, Bellamy shoots back over his shoulder, already halfway out the office door.

She shouts after him, voice echoing down the hallway as he lifts his jacket off the hook, reaching into his pocket for his car keys.

“And you’re gonna be getting the last choice of shifts for at least a month!”

\- -

Clarke’s having fun.

She doesn’t know how or why Monty decided to come and entertain her, whether it was Harper that gave him the initial push or if he’s got some kind of personal honour code that made him follow after her, but she’s incredibly grateful nonetheless. The older boy has a dry, acerbic sense of humour, a ‘give no fucks’ attitude that conversely puts Clarke at ease, trusting that he’s there out of choice rather than obligation, no trace of pity or condescension in his sharp eyes. He’s much more talkative than he was outside, smoothly keeping the conversation going with a minimum of input from her, and it doesn’t taking long before Clarke finds herself relaxing, laughing into her glass Monty regales her with tales of his and Jasper’s wild exploits at college, Gaia’s judgemental gaze receding into distant memory.

The vodka lemonade goes down easy, the glass empty before she even really registers that she’s drinking it, the alcohol suffusing her body with a gentle heat, softly unfurling tendrils of warmth that loosen her tense muscles and calm her jittery thoughts, like sinking into a hot bath. For the first time in she doesn’t know how long, Clarke stands up straight, the tightness in her muscles melting away, the omnipresent knot of guilt in her stomach unravelling, finally let down off the rack that she’s been twisting on for months. All her anxieties, her sharp-tongued, taunting thoughts, are still there, but they’re muffled and declawed, remote in a way that somehow allows her to ignore them. Instead she devotes her full attention to Monty and his cruelly hilarious observations about their fellow party-goers, even working up the courage to contribute a cutting remark or two of her own.

So. Clarke gets why people drunk, if it’s always like this.

She nods and enthusiastically proffers her glass when Monty asks if she wants another drink, giggling when he dramatically groans in disappointment, clutching his chest like she’s mortally wounded him.

“I’m gonna bill you for this, you know,” he says, mixing her another vodka-lemonade, slightly stronger this time. “I’ve created a monster.”

It’s only after she finishes the second cocktail, gazing at the ice cubes sadly clinking together at the bottom of the empty glass, that she realises that she needs the bathroom.

“Do you know where the restroom is?” she asks Monty, carefully setting down her empty glass.

“The _restroom?_ ” He shakes his head, smiling. “There’s a toilet just off the hallway, next to the living room.”

“Thanks.” Clarke pushes herself away from the counter that she’s been leaning against for the last half hour, wobbling slightly.

“You okay?” Monty says, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Uh huh,” she smiles, nodding firmly. “Back in a bit.”

There’s a long queue for the bathroom, Clarke joining the line behind a girl so drunk that she’s lolling unsteadily against the wall, holding her shoes in her hand, feet bare on the grimy carpet.

“You’ve got a wrapper stuck to your foot,” Clarke helpfully points out.

The girl lifts her head, peering at her with unfocused, bleary eyes. “Huh?” she slurs, belatedly looking down at her feet. “Oh my god.”

She stumbles, almost falling over as she reaches down to peel the offending item off the bottom of her foot, taking a couple of tries before she finally gets hold of it, examining it with a furrowed brow before she puts out her palm, blowing it away like a dandelion seed, letting it flutter slowly back down to the carpet. “Thanks.”

Clarke smiles politely in response.

The line takes a long time, and she’s almost hopping from foot to foot by the time that she finally gets into the bathroom, making sure to lock the door securely behind her. She pees quickly, not wanting to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in the cramped room, and washes her hands, drying them off on the rough towel hanging on the radiator.

Glancing into the mirror above the sink, Clarke pauses, examining her reflection. Whatever magic Octavia worked earlier seems to be holding, her make-up still immaculate, but under the artfully applied layers of foundation and powder there’s no hiding the flushed tone to her skin, the bright spots of colour high on her cheekbones, like she’s just come in from the cold. Her braids, so meticulous and neat when she left the house, have started to come undone, loose tendrils of hair pulling free of their confines to curl around her face, highlighting the baby-faced softness of her cheeks, the plushness of her parted lips, the startling blue of her large eyes.

What would Bellamy think if he could see her like this? Would his eyes narrow, his hands clench tightly at his sides, to see the sulky pout of her mouth, her bed-messy hair, her innocent wide-eyed gaze turned sultry and suggestive, heavy-lidded and mysterious under the weight of shadow and false lashes? Would she be able to make out the tic in his jaw, the furious beat of his pulse in his throat, at the sight of her body barely contained in this dress, breasts spilling out of the low neckline, a hands-breadth of fabric the only thing keeping her cunt from being on full display to the world?

What would he do to her, if he were here now?

The heat of the vodka in her veins suddenly flares, no longer soft and comforting but something fierce and demanding, setting her body on fire with the urgent need to be touched, to be held, to feel bare skin against her own. Closing her eyes, head tipping back against an imaginary lover, she brings her hands up to cup her breasts, measuring the heavy weight of them in her palms, biting back a quiet moan as she squeezes the sensitive flesh, brushing over her hard nipples with her thumbs, a pathetic approximation of the feelings that Bellamy rouses in her body. Her cunt pulses with arousal, and she bites her lip, imagining his heated reaction, the filth that he would whisper in her ear were he to put his hand between her legs, finding nothing but bare skin glistening with her own wetness.

Someone knocks at the door, Clarke jumping at the sound, her eyes springing open.

“Just a minute,” she shouts, hurriedly running the tap on full for cover, taking a breathless second to get herself under control. “Sorry!”

“Sorry,” she mutters again as she opens the door, sheepishly avoiding the annoyed gaze of the girl waiting outside, swiftly ducking past her into the safety of the crowded hallway. She tugs at the hemline of her dress as she moves, pulling it down as far as it’ll go, ignoring the pounding of her blood between her thighs, the ache of her erect nipples against the scratchy lace of her bra.

Pushing her way through into the kitchen, Clarke blinks in surprise. She’d expected to find Monty standing where she left him, waiting for her with a refilled glass and a wry smile, but instead she sees that the space they’d occupied is empty, no sign of her new friend, nothing but an empty bottle of soda on the counter to mark where they’d been standing.

_How long was I in the bathroom?_ she puzzles, brow furrowing. _Has he gone back outside without me?_

“Looking for someone?”

Clarke looks up in surprise as a guy walks over to her, swaying ever so slightly on his feet, an empty beer bottle held loosely at his side. He’s short, delicately built, with sandy blonde hair and watery eyes that are set just a fraction too closely together, giving his face an unfortunate, off-kilter look, like a portrait where the lines have been drawn and redrawn too many times, edging further and further away from reality with each stroke.

She nervously holds her ground as he approaches, stopping right next to her, just on the edge of too close.

“Uh,” she clears her throat, trying to sound more confident than she feels. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Well, I can tell that you’re fine,” Blond Guy replies, face screwing up in what she thinks is meant to be a wink, both eyes fluttering madly. “What I asked was, are you looking for someone?”

Clarke lifts her chin, folding her arms across her chest, her standard defensive move. It’s only when Blond Guy’s eyes widen dramatically that she realises her mistake, the manoeuvre pushing her breasts up and almost out of her dress, an alarming amount of flesh on display. Quickly she lowers her arms again. “I was looking for my friend.”

“Boyfriend.”

She shakes her head. “Just a friend.”

“Cool,” Blond Guy says casually, feigning disinterest, glancing away as he scrubs at his mouth with the back of his hand. “So, you’ll have a drink with me then.”

“What? No,” Clarke replies automatically.

He rolls his eyes in response, huffing loudly. “Come on, don’t be like that. It’s just a drink. What, you think that a guy can’t talk to you without hitting on you?”

“No, I didn’t mean - ”

“So, why not?”

“She said no,” a pissed off voice suddenly interrupts from behind Clarke, a possessive arm wrapping tightly around her shoulders.

Clarke inwardly breathes a deep sigh of relief, relaxing into Octavia as her best friend draws her in close. Glancing over, she sees that O’s head is cocked slightly to the side as she takes in Blond Guy, upper lip curling in disgust, dark eyes narrowing to sharp, glittering points. Even though Octavia’s mouth is closed, Clarke gets the distinct impression of bared teeth, her friend’s petite body bristling with an anger too big for it to contain, the air around her crackling with a rage that Clarke can feel prickling across her own skin, like static electricity.

Ridiculous, to somehow feel safer now that she’s here. Octavia, who is even smaller than Clarke herself, who can fit two of her delicate hands to one of Bellamy’s large paws, who, despite her towering heels, only just comes up to the middle of this guy’s chest. Still, taking in her friend’s murderous expression, Clarke can’t help but think that maybe the real test of their friendship tonight won’t be sneaking out to party - it’ll be helping O bury this creep’s body after she’s finished with him.

“Hey.” Completely oblivious to the danger that he’s in, Blond Guy’s eyes light up, his voice slipping into something low and back-alley smooth. “So _this_ is your friend, huh? Tell you what, how about she joins us?”

There’s no need to guess what he’s thinking. Not when he’s practically drooling at the sight of the two young girls standing in front of him, gross, cliched fantasies playing out across his open face like a movie, some low-rent soft porn flick with two giggling schoolgirls and him in the starring role. Instinctively she shrinks away from him, tucking herself even closer into her friend’s side, Octavia’s arm tightening protectively around her, the tips of her slender fingers digging into Clarke’s soft upper arm like claws.

“Get lost, asshole,” Octavia snarls.

“What’s the problem?” Blond Guy opens his arms wide, gesturing to the room around them. “It’s a party, don’t you wanna have some fun?”

“The problem,” O spits, “is you hitting on my _fifteen year old_ friend.”

“Whatever,” he sneers. “Like I’m gonna believe she’s fifteen, looking like _that_.”

Grinning, Blond Guy looks to Clarke for confirmation, face falling instantly as he sees the look on her face.

“Shit,” he says forcefully. He drops his arms, looking around furtively before he speaks, voice lowered so that Clarke struggles to hear his next words over the noise of the party. “No harm, no foul okay? I didn’t touch her.”

“Fuck off.” Octavia lets go of Clarke, taking a step forward. 

“Okay, okay,” Blonde Guy says quickly, putting his hands up, backing off. “I’m going.”

“Bitch,” he mutters under his breath as he spins around, walking off and disappearing swiftly into the crowd.

“What a dick,” Octavia says.

“Uh huh.”

They both stand there in silence, just staring after him, before Octavia turns to Clarke, face lighting up in a dazzling smile, leaning up to fling her arms around her in a powerful hug. “Where have you been? I missed you!”

Clarke stumbles backwards with the strength of her embrace, taking a second to regain her balance before she clumsily returns the hug, wrapping her arms loosely around her friend’s waist. She closes her eyes as she leans her head against Octavia’s, feeling the softness of her hair against her cheek, inhaling the smell of her strawberry shampoo. It feels like a very long time since they’ve been this close. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be the focus of Octavia’s affection, to bask in the bright, almost overwhelming warmth of her love, the only force in the world as fierce and terrifying as her anger.

“I missed you too,” she whispers into her friend’s hair, too quietly for her to hear.

Just as quickly as she’d thrown herself at Clarke, Octavia suddenly pulls back. “Come on, come with me.”

Dazed, feeling like she’s got emotional whiplash from all of Octavia’s sudden changes in mood, Clarke follows her friend as she cuts a path through the packed rooms, leading them towards the front of the house. She’s relieved to see that she isn’t the only one who’s a little worse for wear from the alcohol tonight - Octavia, normally so graceful and quick, is slower on her feet than normal, her movements clumsy, almost stumbling a couple of times as she navigates her way through the crowd.

“Having fun?” she shouts, looking back at Clarke, who winces as her friend walks headlong into a guy’s back. He spins around, clearly annoyed, mouth open to shout at whoever knocked into him, but swiftly changes his tack when he sees Octavia, choosing instead to tip his cup and give her an appreciative nod. She smiles coyly back as she passses him.

Eventually Octavia guides Clarke into the living room, where the music is blasting at an almost unbearable volume. There’s a crowd of people dancing next to the speakers - one drunk couple in the middle lazily swaying as they sloppily make out, the guy squeezing the girl’s buttocks like Play-Doh - but O walks straight past them, over to a group of people on couches over in the corner. Clarke suppresses a groan when she sees that Steve is there, lounging with his legs spread and his long arms draped across the back of the couch.

“Here she is,” he says as they approach, slowly lifting his head and looking at Octavia. He smiles lazily, eyes dulled with alcohol. “Where’d you go, babe?”

“I was getting Clarke,” Octavia replies breezily. She doesn’t so much sit on the couch next to Steve as execute a not-so-controlled fall, dropping heavily down onto the cushions, almost toppling over into his side.

“Careful,” he slurs, taking a long pull on his beer.

Unfazed, Octavia just grins at him, reaching for the bottle. Steve hands the beer over without complaint, watching intently while she drinks, eyes locked to the movements of her throat as she swallows.

“Come on,” O says, handing the beer back to Steve and looking up at Clarke. “Sit down.”

Clarke sits down on the couch next to her, careful not to fall back into the cushions and flash the whole room, keeping her feet firmly on the ground and her legs closed, knees touching. She feels Octavia watching her, a knowing smile on her face, and she squirms, biting her lip as she feels a new rush of wetness between her legs, arousal apparently back in full force after being briefly dulled by her encounter with Blond Guy in the kitchen.

“Whose turn is it?” a red-headed girl sitting opposite Clarke asks, shouting to be heard over the music.

_Turn?_

Looking round uneasily, Clarke spots a beer bottle lying on its side on the coffee table in front of her, noticing for the first time that all the furniture is arranged in a makeshift ring, couches and chairs pulled into a circle with the bottle at its centre.

“O…” she sighs, turning to give her friend an exasperated look.

Octavia just giggles, leaning back into Steve, who brings his arm down from the back of the couch to heavily drape around her, pulling her small frame tight against his side. “It’s just a game, Clarke. It’s ironic.”

Clarke raises an incredulous eyebrow, not even bothering to dignify that with a response.

“What’s the harm?” Octavia asks, lifting one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I mean, it’s not like you have a boyfriend or anything, is it?”

_It’s not like my brother is really interested in you, is it?_

Something flashes in her friend’s eyes as she speaks, something cold and sharp that slashes through Clarke like a knife, so quick that she could almost think that she’d imagined it, if not for the breath stolen from her lungs, the skipped beat of her pulse. Octavia’s smile doesn’t falter for a second.

Clarke shakes her head silently.

“So, let’s play.” Octavia’s voice brooks no argument, and Clarke swallows, mouth dry.

The redheaded girl leans over and spins the bottle. Clarke stares as it spins, wobbling slightly on the uneven surface, something almost mesmerising about how the light bounces off the label, alternating flashes of green and silver. She holds her breath, only exhaling when it slowly rolls to a stop, safely pointing at a shaven-headed boy sat on a desk chair over to her left. He grins, making a big show of rolling his chair over to the redhead, much to the noisy amusement of the group.

Clarke looks away as they kiss, uncomfortably aware of the slick, lonely emptiness between her own thighs, the insistent, frustrated beat of thwarted desire thrumming through her veins.

The game quickly becomes raucous, cheers going up from the circle every time the bottle spins, whoops and wolf whistles accompanying each kiss, which range in duration and intensity from lengthy make-out sessions to a single closed-mouth peck. The latter meets with loud disapproval from the group, applause quickly turning to boos and hisses as the guy in question pulls back, nose winkled in distaste. It’s clear that some people already have their eye on someone, Clarke catching more than one meaningful look being exchanged over the coffee table, a couple of players even trying to cheat the game by spinning the bottle with more or less force depending on the position of their crush.

She looks nervously around the circle, out across a sea of strangers’ faces, stomach fluttering queasily each time the bottle spins, relief flooding through her each time it lands on someone else, grateful for even the shortest reprieve from what she somehow already knows is inescapable. It almost doesn’t feel real, the vodka slowing her responses and heightening her anxiety into something approaching a trancelike state, an almost out-of-body experience, anchored to the couch by nothing more than the weight of her growing unease, the heavy pounding of her pulse in her needy cunt.

“Tonight, yeah babe?” Steve whispers urgently in Octavia’s ear, his low rasp carrying across to Clarke under the loud music. “Tonight?”

Thankfully, she can’t hear her friend’s response.

And then, inevitable but still unwelcome, it’s Clarke’s turn.

“Your go,” the boy sitting to her right says, nudging her with a pointed elbow. She inhales sharply, and looks at him, and something of her dilemma must show in her face, because he pauses, unsure. “You’re playing, right?”

“She’s playing,” Octavia says loudly from the other end of the couch, cutting in before she even has a chance to open her mouth. The other girl sits up, pushing Steve away, his face screwing up in a sulky expression of protest that she doesn’t notice, dark eyes intent on Clarke. “Aren’t you, Clarke?”

Maybe if it wasn’t for the alcohol coursing through her bloodstream, barely able to hear her own disjointed thoughts over the senseless roar of confused and blind desire, Clarke could have come up with a way out of the situation that she’s somehow found herself in. Instead, she leans over, putting her hand on the bottle. The glass is cold and slippery under her fingertips, wet with condensation, the label torn and split where someone’s been playing with it. Taking a deep breath, her heart thudding heavily against her ribcage, she spins it, a loud cheer going up from the group. 

It’s a half-hearted effort, excited shouts almost immediately giving way to groans of disappointment as the bottle spins sluggishly, barely managing one full rotation before it comes to a premature halt.

Pointing right at Steve.

He blinks, squinting at the bottle in confusion for a long moment before the meaning finally seems to hit him, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Clarke,” he says, turning to face her, swaying dangerously, so far past drunk that he can’t even sit straight without the couch to hold him up. “I never knew you felt that way.” He waggles his eyebrows.

Clarke wants to throw up, a visceral sensation of disgust curdling her insides at just the thought of Steve touching her, his clammy hands on her body, his beer-soaked tongue invading her mouth. She can’t move, paralysed by panic as he pulls his arm out from around Octavia, putting out an unsteady hand to support himself, clumsily leaning in towards her.

“What are you doing?” Octavia interrupts, her voice calm.

“Uh?” Steve grunts, pulling back to look blearily into her friend’s face. “It’s the game, babe. Don’t be jealous, yeah?”

Octavia smiles sweetly, that extra-special, butter-wouldn’t-melt smile that she reserves for only her most outrageous acts. It does absolutely nothing to calm Clarke’s anxiety, swallowing nervously as she wonders what on earth her friend is up to now.

“I’m not jealous, _babe_ ,” Octavia says lightly, reaching up to caress Steve’s face. Clarke feels the goosebumps rise along her own arms as she watches her friend’s sharp nails trace gently along the line of his cheekbone, Steve’s nostrils flaring as he inhales, his eyes suddenly dark with arousal. “It’s just…the bottle landed on me, didn’t it?”

“But…” Steve says, brow furrowing as he looks down at her. It’s a pitiful sight, watching him struggle to think through the potent combination of alcohol and lust that’s clearly clouding his mind, his expression rapidly turning pathetic as he tries to work out what Octavia wants him to say, like a dog trying desperately to please its owner. Clarke almost feels sorry for him, for all that her stomach is still roiling from their near miss encounter. “I saw…”

“Look again.”

Clarke’s mouth falls open in disbelief as Octavia gently pushes Steve back against the arm of the couch, reaching past her boyfriend to nudge the bottle the tiniest fraction to the left, so it’s pointing at her instead of him. No one in the circle says a word, Clarke looking round to see her own shock reflected on everyone’s faces.

“See?” Octavia says, sitting back. She puts her hand on Steve’s chest, pouting slightly, looking up at him through innocently fluttering eyelashes. “Don’t you want to watch me kiss her?”

Clarke didn’t know that it was possible to have a stunned silence in the middle of a raucous house party, but it must be, because that’s exactly what seems to be happening. The teeth-rattlingly loud music, the metallic clink of glass on glass, the discordant hum of people talking and laughing - all of it fades away to nothing, no more than muted background noise as the entire circle falls silent on a collectively held breath, furniture creaking as people lean forward in anticipation, everyone looking to Steve for his decision.

For his part, Steve looks torn, eyes darting between Clarke and Octavia as his mouth opens and closes uselessly, like a fish neatly caught on a hook. Clarke looks away, fighting nausea at the sight of his fleshy, saliva-flecked lips.

“Yeah,” he finally says, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat. “Yeah, okay.”

Relief rushes through Clarke, one long floating moment of exhilaration before the realisation suddenly hits her, a one-two punch that leaves her reeling.

“Wait - ” she croaks, looking up.

The rest of her sentence is lost in the hard press of her best friend’s mouth on hers.

Octavia doesn’t take it easy on her. This is not a kiss with room for gentle seduction, no time to waste on tentative exploration or playful teasing, no space for equivocation or half measures. This is a slash-and-burn kiss, an all or nothing kiss, a brutal drop onto hard ground with nothing to cushion the fall, no illusions or fantasies for Clarke to cling to later when she tries to tell herself that she didn’t want this. This is Octavia’s mouth against hers, just as sloppy and messy and possessive as she’d been at twelve, only this time there’s real heat behind it, a demanding edge to her movements that makes Clarke’s blood roar in her ears, panting into the kiss.

Octavia slings a leg over Clarke’s lap and gracefully straddles her, the noise from the circle reaching a fever pitch, excited shouts and whoops of encouragement combining with the chaos of the party around them to create a cacophony of sound that matches the tumult in Clarke’s body. A part of her is grateful for the noise, for the distraction that hides her whine of frustration, her needy gasp as she bucks up into the slight weight of her friend’s body, hands going to the other girl’s slim hips to hold her in place as they rock together. There’s a sharp sting in her scalp, Octavia’s fingers burying themselves in Clarke’s hair, tugging painfully at her braids, tilting her face up to meet her relentless mouth as the kiss deepens, becoming even more frenzied, even more impossibly frantic.

Clarke squeezes her eyes tightly closed, whimpering with embarrassment, knowing that they’re being watched by the whole room, that everyone can see how readily she gives in to her best fiend, how easily she falls apart at the slightest touch, how quickly she allows herself to be undone. Somehow, the humiliation doesn’t seem to dampen her desire so much as drive it to even greater heights, her cheeks flaming red even as her head tips back, Octavia reliquishing her mouth to attack her neck, sucking a hard bruise into the fragile skin as Clarke shudders.

It’s not enough. She can’t get the friction she needs, the other girl’s weight too light, the couch cushions too soft, no leverage to thrust upwards, the movements of their hips more frustrating than truly satisfying. Octavia’s hands fall to Clarke’s breasts, cupping and squeezing her sensitive flesh through the climsy fabric, yet the sensations only inflame the need burning in Clarke’s core, lacking the easy confidence of Bellamy’s experienced touch. She tightens her grip on her friend’s hips, jerkily grinding up against her, but the angle is all wrong, pressure but not quite where she needs it, Clarke biting at Octavia’s mouth as her eagerness gets the better of her, earning a quick tweak to her nipples in punishment.

_Bellamy._ The guilt slams into Clarke like a physical blow, face burning hot with fresh shame even as she moans and squirms underneath his sister, helplessly wishing that he was there with them. He’d know what to do. He’d know exactly how they should move, all the ways in which their bodies were shaped to grind and rock and fit together, how to take this clashing, frenetic energy sparking between them and channel it into something slick and filthy and satisfying. She can see it, the images flashing through her mind almost too vivid for mere fantasy - Bellamy, discovering the two of them together, girlfriend and sister entwined before him, lust darkening his eyes rather than anger, the hard set of his jaw softening into the lax lines of desire, full mouth parting around a slow, overwhelmed exhale. His hands, reaching out - not to stop them, not to tear them apart, but to gently guide their movements, patiently coaxing their bodies towards pleasure just as he’s guided Clarke so many times before.

She whines for his absence, for the aching pang of bittersweet need that suddenly sweeps through her, but just then Octavia scrapes her teeth against Clarke’s neck, a stinging rebuke like she can sense her friend’s attention slipping away from her, and Clarke jerks, all thoughts of Bellamy momentarily lost.

\- -

Bellamy hears the party from half a block away. Quiet at first, a low indistinct hum barely audible over the growl of the car engine, gradually building until the rhythmic thud of the music is loud enough to set his teeth on edge, tension vibrating sickly through his body, shifting restlessly in his seat. Soon he’s close enough to pick out individual noises, hands tightening on the steering wheel as he hears the unmistakeable sound of a girl yelling, swiftly followed by peals of wild laughter that ring out eerily into the dark night. He grits his teeth, telling himself that it doesn’t sound like Octavia.

There’s no need to check the house number in Murphy’s message, not when the front door is wide open, music and people spilling out into the front yard and overflowing onto the sidewalk, the road full of walking wounded like the aftermath of a battle. Bellamy pulls up outside, slamming the car door behind him as he gets out. He’s double parked. It doesn’t matter.

He won’t be here for long.

A quick sweep of the front yard shows no sign of either Octavia or Murphy, and Bellamy sets off grimly towards the house, cutting a swift path through the crowd. Paying each person only enough attention to be sure that they’re not Octavia, he dispassionately notes all the typical party dramas playing out around him, every stereotype and cliché represented in this tiny cross-section of messy humanity. There’s the teenage girl throwing up in the bushes, her friend gently rubbing her back as she retches; two shirtless men squaring up for a fight, almost too drunk to stand, unclear whether their tight grip on one another is for the purpose of violence or maintaining balance; a couple making out on the porch, the girl’s petite frame barely visible behind the bulk of her partner. Bellamy glimpses dark hair and freezes, stomach twisting, but then he sees the girl’s face, catches the flash of a lip ring, and he continues on, relieved if not relaxed.

The heat washes over him as soon as he steps into the sweaty, closely-packed house, despair swiftly following as he takes in the scene around him. Even with the advantage of his height, it’s going to be a struggle to find Octavia - with the lights dimmed, and so many bodies crammed together in such a small space, he could easily walk right past his sister without even noticing her. He’s going to have to go through the entire house, searching each room individually, the thought alone enough to make him want to scream with frustration, his body on fire with the crackling buzz of adrenaline, demanding nothing less than immediate action, resolution.

Bellamy glances at the stairs and looks away again immediately, jaw clenching. Maybe the smart move would be to start upstairs, reassure himself that at least Octavia isn’t in one of the bedrooms, but something vital in him threatens to give out at the prospect of finding his baby sister sprawled out beneath Steve, and he knows that he’s not strong enough to face that particular worst-case scenario until it’s forced upon him.

Pulling out his phone, he calls Murphy, but it goes straight to voicemail, just like every other time he’s tried it over the last thirty minutes. _Fucker_. If he was being charitable, he might allow the possibility that the other man’s phone has just run out of battery, but he’s not in the mood to give anyone the benefit of the doubt right now, and it’s just Murphy’s style to lob a grenade into someone else’s life and run, to set up the dominoes and watch them fall with a manic, detached glee. 

It’s in everyone’s best interests tonight that Bellamy finds Octavia first.

Bracing himself, Bellamy takes a step towards the living room, only for his way to be immediately blocked.

“Hey, Bellamy,” the girl says, giving him a slow, appreciative look up and down. She smiles, a knowing twist of the mouth that makes her intentions obvious. “Haven’t seen you around for a while.”

She’s tall, almost as tall as him, with long dark brown hair teased into a quiff, delicate features and minimal make-up, a mischievous glint in her eye that promises a good time. Attractive enough, and she clearly knows him, even if he has no fucking idea who she is.

“Sorry,” Bellamy says bluntly, in no mood for small talk. A loud shout goes up from the living room, and he looks up towards the direction of the noise, already pushing past her. “Not tonight.”

Bellamy barely has time to register the look of shocked upset on her face before he’s pulled away, almost swept off his feet by a sudden wave of people rushing into the living room. He cranes his head above the crowd, a futile attempt to see what’s gotten everyone’s attention, exactly what kind of catfight or beer pong game could have sparked so much violent interest, but it’s disorientating, jostled on all sides as the crowd presses in close around him, and he can’t make out anything clearly, eyes skimming frantic and unseeing over the room. He hisses in pain, someone’s sharp elbow digging viciously into his side, people around him shouting and calling out, noise swelling into a dangerous fever pitch that only adds to the mounting sense of chaos.

Then the sea of people miracuously parts, his view finally unobstructed, able to see exactly what all the fuss is about.

It’s nothing. Just two girls, sloppily making out on the couch. Bellamy rolls his eyes, about to turn away, when -

_Wait._

Not two girls.

_His_ girls.

There’s a long, quiet moment where Bellamy doesn’t quite feel anything, suspended in some calm, weightless state halfway between shock and confusion, the world around him falling away until there’s nothing but the silence of his own held breath, the muffled pounding of his heartbeat in his ears, dimly heard as if from some great distance. Stunned, he watches as his girlfriend - _Clarke_ \- writhes underneath his sister, head tipping back against the couch as Octavia kisses down her neck, reddened skin obvious even from here, eyes closed, lost to ecstasy. Absently, he thinks that her expression, the tangible proof of her desire, so precious, so coveted, so jealously guarded by him, _for_ him, should provoke some reaction, some measure of anger or sadness or pain, but instead he feels nothing, wondering at the curious lightness in his chest, nothing but clean white space where he would expect to feel rage.

Bellamy waits. For what, he isn’t sure - to be overwhelmed perhaps, consumed, torn apart by the same sick possessiveness he felt watching Octavia kiss Steve, the cold grip of old and familiar fears clutching tight and sharp at his gut, unable to see straight through the betrayal, left gasping from the pain.

He waits, but that’s not what happens.

He exhales, a slow and stuttering breath, shock gradually relinquishing its hold over his body, the world tripping and falling back into place around him, and feels only -

Desire.

_Desire._ It’s a soft word, a pleasant word, easy on the lips and undemanding on the heart, a polite veil drawn over the basest of impulses, the most urgent and undeniable of human needs. It doesn’t even come close to capturing the intensity of what he’s feeling, the desperate hunger that flares like wildfire in the pit of his stomach, cock stiffening in his jeans as he watches his baby sister clumsily fondle his girlfriend’s breasts. It can’t possibly hope to describe the war raging within him, torn between possessiveness and protectiveness, breathing hard with the animal need to claim, to reach out and take what’s his, to make it his forever with teeth and hands and cock, at the same time as he wants to fall to his knees, lifting up trembling, cautious hands, offering nothing but the most reverent, gentle touch for his girls. A shallow, useless word, far too flimsy to contain the depth of the emotions twisting in his chest, nothing but pale shadow compared to the lust that burns through him, licking at his flesh like living flame.

Clarke’s mouth opens in a silent moan, hips bucking up so violently that Octavia almost loses her balance, forced to tighten her knees around the other girl’s thighs to stay in place. Bellamy sways helplessly towards them, pulled as if by some unknown gravity, gritting his teeth against his natural instinct to step in, to show them what to do, to teach his girls this just as he’s taught them everything else. Poor things, so desperate and needy, so sweet and endearing in their clumsiness. It would be so easy to go over there, to show Clarke how to grind up and find her satisfaction against Octavia’s skinny thigh, to show his sister just how Clarke likes to be touched, how to walk that razor-sharp line between pleasure and pain that gets his girl off like nothing else, the single grain of salt that makes all the sugar taste so much sweeter.

After all, who else is there? Who else could ever know his girls so well, could love them so well, as he could?

A flicker of movement catches Bellamy’s attention, reluctantly looking up from Octavia and Clarke to meet Steve’s bleary eyes. Steve, who raises his chin in cocky defiance, leaning forward and deliberately laying his hand across the small of Octavia’s back, his large palm almost spanning the width of her body, far too heavy a touch for such delicate, vulnerable skin.

Bellamy narrows his eyes, hands clenching into fists at his side.

“I know, man,” someone says to his right, a skinny blonde guy with a nasal drawl that scrapes painfully across Bellamy’s already fragile nerves. “It’s a fucking shame. Fifteen years old, apparently. The best ones always are, right?”

Rage rushes through Bellamy almost like relief, exhilarating in its perfect clarity, mind and body joined together in righteous purpose. He spins around, grabbing hold of the other guy’s collar, almost lifting the creep off the ground as he shoves him hard up against the wall, colliding with a sick, darkly satisfying thump.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Blonde Guy looks up at him with blank, terrified eyes, and Bellamy rears back, hands tightening, ready to slam him into the wall again.

“Bellamy?”

It’s a miracle that he hears her at all. Her voice is soft, plaintive, almost more breath than sound, yet it somehow cuts straight through him, rage collapsing instantly into dust, hands loosening before he even consciously registers her voice. Sensing his chance for escape, Blonde Creep slides down the wall and quickly ducks under Bellamy’s outstretched arm, running out into the hallway and disappearing into the crowd.

“Bellamy?” Clarke repeats. Louder this time, voice cracking pathetically, Bellamy recognising the same shock, the same pained disbelief that held him paralysed only moments ago. He turns just in time to see Clarke roughly shove Octavia away, his little sister sent sprawling across the couch, the siblings’ eyes meeting for a split-second across the crowded room before Octavia looks down to the floor, her expression unreadable.

Clarke stands, letting out a loud sob as she runs for the door. Bellamy steps forward, reaching out to try and grab her, but she’s already gone, his hand closing around nothing but empty air.

\- -

Clarke fights a path through the crowd, stumbling and half-blind with tears, frantically shoving her way through the mass of partygoers that block her escape. People yell as she pushes past them, all elbows and high heels, one girl crying out in shock as Clarke suddenly slams into her, accidentally tipping an entire red cup of beer down the front of her dress.

Clarke doesn’t stop to apologise, can’t stop to look back. Panic surges through her, far more potent and disorientating than any alcohol, all her thoughts crashing together in furious chaos, a thousand dissenting voices shouting at once, one voice rising louder than all the others, telling her to - _run_.

So, she runs.

Reaching out, her hand lands on something hard - the smooth, polished wood of the staircase railing. Clarke holds on tight and pulls, launching herself up the stairs, staggering wildly, held upright by nothing more than momentum and pure adrenalin. A hand wraps around her forearm, someone trying to drag her back down, but she shakes it off, almost tripping over her heels as she stumbles onto the first floor. A door opens right in front of her, a man stepping out of the bathroom into the hallway, and without thinking she rushes inside, barely registering the indignant shouts of the people in the queue outside. Quickly, she turns to slam the door shut behind her.

Not quickly enough. A hand appears in the gap, catching the door just as it’s about to close, Clarke taking a shaky step backwards as Bellamy follows her into the bathroom, his gaze dark and fixed on her. Frantic, she searches his

expression, looking for any clue as to what he’s feeling, some indication whether his pursuit is fuelled by anger or concern, but his face is closed off, his expression indecipherable, doing nothing to settle the panic fluttering in her belly. His eyes, when she gathers up the courage to meet them, are black and empty - a predator’s eyes, impossible to read, reflecting nothing but her own terror.

Clarke swallows nervously, tears suddenly forgotten.

Slowly, his eyes never leaving her face, Bellamy reaches back and locks the door. He steps forward, nostrils flaring as he inhales, scenting her like an animal. Clarke takes another step back, heart juddering in her chest as she feels the cold, smooth press of tile at her back.

There’s nowhere for her to go. She’s trapped, back literally to the wall, helpless to do anything but stare mutely up at Bellamy as he steadily advances towards her. Clarke bites her lip, stomach clenching tight and twisting with fear.

Fear and…something else.

Has Bellamy always been this…big? This tall, this broad, body thick with muscle that turns each sleek movement into a careless display of power, the strength he takes for granted and couldn’t imagine being without? Has his gaze always been so intense, so focused on her, the full force of his undivided attention so overwhelming that she’s paralysed, held fast by his cold-burning eyes?

Has she always wanted him this much? Sick with it, shivering and desperate with it, body weakening with the need to feel him inside her, for him to take what he wants from her, use her exactly as he sees fit?

Bellamy takes a final step forward, crowding her up against the wall, Clarke’s head falling back against the tile with a soft thump as she fights to maintain eye contact. This close, he is no longer indecipherable to her, no longer a mystery, unable to hide all the little signs that he’s just as wound up as she is, teetering just as dangerously on the edge. The tic of the muscle in his jaw, the ragged sound of his breath, the manic way that his eyes dart over her face and body, taking in the state of her, tracing a burning path over her skin just as possessive as any touch.

No longer a mystery, but still a threat.

Bellamy’s eyes fall to her neck, narrowing dangerously as he sees the bruise there, Clarke’s skin still throbbing from his baby sister’s touch.

Clarke whines, a masochistic little shiver running through her body. _Punish me_ , she thinks, hysterically. _Punish me. If for nothing else, then for this at least. Do it._

Bellamy’s eyes flick back up to meet hers, Clarke’s mouth parting on a shaky inhale, and then he’s on her, mouth hard enough to bruise as it slams down on hers, his big hands clamping down around her thighs, lifting her up against the tiled wall, parting her legs to wrap tightly around his waist. He nips and bites at her lips, growling into the kiss as she fumbles with his belt, trembling hands scrabbling at the fly of his jeans, finally pulling down his boxer-briefs just enough to free his cock, so thick that her fingers can’t meet around the bulk of him. The alcohol makes her clumsy, struggling to stroke him with anything approaching rhythm; Bellamy hisses when she accidentally squeezes him too tight but doesn’t pull away, his own movements just as desperate, fighting to yank her dress up over her hips.

His hands skim back down over her thighs, fingers outstretched to pull down her panties, confident touch suddenly faltering as his palms glide uninterrupted over smooth, pale skin, no sign of even the tiniest scrap of lace or cotton. He stops, rough hands tightening painfully on soft flesh, and draws back, brow crumpled in consternation, animal eyes softening for a moment into a look of pure, almost childlike confusion, heartbreaking in its intensity. Clarke squirms uncomfortably against the wall, unable to look away, humiliation flickering weakly through her as Bellamy reaches with one hand between her legs, finding no barrier between him and her wet cunt, thighs damp with the shameful proof of her own pathetic need. His eyes fall closed as he groans loudly - a wretched sound, a half-formed, strangled thing caught somewhere in the back of his throat, pain laced through with jagged desire - and knocks her hand roughly off his cock, jerking himself briefly before he lines himself up with her cunt and presses inside her.

Clarke gasps, trapped between the wall and the heavy press of his body, hands clawing weakly at the broad expanse of his back, unable to get any kind of purchase on the smooth leather of his jacket. There’s none of the care that Bellamy normally takes with her, no playful kisses or slow, teasing foreplay to warm her body up to take him, just the breathless, burning stretch, the steady, inexorable push of his cock inside her, forced combustion, her only choice to yield or twist helplessly in the flames. He moans again as he fucks into her, cunt so wet that he enters her in one easy stroke, from empty to full so quickly that her head spins with it, air chased from her lungs, no room left in her for anything but him.

She whimpers, toes curling, wondering what he would have done if she hadn’t been so wet, so ready for him. Would he have fucked her anyway? Forced her to take him, fingers digging dark bruises into her waist as he held her still for him, ignoring her whines and gasps and wriggling attempts at escape? Used her like she once used him, her body sacrified on the altar of his own brute desire?

Clarke bites down on the shoulder of Bellamy’s jacket as he fucks her, dark leather bitter on her tongue. He doesn’t say a word, face pressed into her neck, mouth open and silent against her skin, a far cry from the dirty talk and filthy praise that normally accompanies their lovemaking, and she shudders, as hopelessly turned on by his inattention as she is upset by it, mortified by her own high-pitched cries echoing through the room. There’s no finesse to his movements, barely withdrawing before he thrusts back into her, in truth doing little more than rutting against her, lost to the blind pursuit of pleasure - still, she finds herself responding to him, moaning and pushing back against every hard thrust, some primal part of her answering the call of his raw and obvious need.

She tightens her legs around him, twisting her hands through his hair and trying to drag him up for a kiss, freezing when he growls in reply, hips stilling, baring his teeth against her throat in warning. Carefully Clarke drops her hands from his hair, letting herself go limp against the wall in a unmistakeable show of submission. Pacified, Bellamy huffs and starts thrusting again, gently holding her in place with his teeth on her neck, neatly framing the spot where Octavia kissed her.

Suddenly they’re moving, Bellamy pulling away from the wall and holding her tight against him, turning round to set her down on the edge of the sink. It’s uncomfortable - he’s so much taller than her, and he has to tilt her hips up to meet his movements, Clarke’s head tipped back at an awkward angle against the bathroom cabinet, cold porcelain digging into her thighs, the faucet jutting squarely into her spine with each thrust. She barely feels the discomfort, looking up into Bellamy’s stricken face, his hair wild and curling with sweat, mouth slack with pleasure even as his eyes blaze, damp with what she could almost swear are tears.

Bellamy reaches up and lays a hand across her throat, the heel of his palm snug against her collarbone, long fingers curling around her neck. Clarke stares up at him, transfixed, feeling the hammering of her pulse against his loose grip; his fingers twitch, seeming for a moment as if they’re about to tighten, but then they relax, hand once again resting easy on her throat.

She’s startled when Bellamy comes, body crumpling, breath coming in harsh little pants against her cheek as his hips lazily work through his orgasm, cock jerking against her. He rests against her for a moment, a welcome grounding weight, and she breathes him in, lifting her arms to wrap tightly around his shoulders, trying to ignore the the need still thrumming through her body, the tension coiled tight in her belly. Distantly through her surprise she registers the dull ache of disappointment, as unfamiliar as it is unwelcome, swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat.

Clarke trembles when he pulls out, letting out a lonely whine of protest as her needy cunt clenches down around nothing, outstretched arms left empty as Bellamy stands back, leaving her balanced precariously on the sink. His eyes are dark as he looks her over, face shadowed, and she shudders, lowering her gaze to the floor, knowing exactly how she must look - skin flushed and chest heaving, legs splayed open, his come already starting to drip out of her swollen cunt. Pitiful, or at least pitiful enough for some small measure of mercy to temper Bellamy’s anger, reaching out with one large hand to stroke delicately over sensitised flesh before he fucks two fingers into her cunt, pressing up firmly into her G-spot, flicking over her clit with a practiced thumb. She groans, humiliated by the sloppy noise as he fingers her, unable to stop her hips from chasing the movements of his hand, the needy moans and whines that fall from her mouth.

She comes embarrassingly quickly, white-knuckled on white porcelain, so hard that it hurts, ripped from some tender place deep inside her, tears springing to her eyes as her body convulses, curling around itself like she’s been punched in the stomach. Bellamy draws it out, steady hand relentless, until she’s forced to push him away, fingers tightening in the worn fabric of his t-shirt as she holds him at bay, letting the final waves of her orgasm rock through her.

Clarke closes her eyes, feeling the sweat prickle across her clammy skin, her rasping breath the only sound in the quiet room. Her hand falls limply away from Bellamy’s chest as he pulls back, and she listens to him move around the room, the tell-tale rattle of drawers opening and closing, a faucet running full-blast for a couple of seconds before it abruptly shuts off. The floorboards creak ominously as he approaches once more, Clarke tensing in apprehension, only to feel the welcome touch of a damp, warm washcloth between her legs. She sways slightly, overwhelmed, eyes still closed, barely breathing as Bellamy gently cleans the delicate skin, wiping up the come she can feel dripping down her thighs. There’s a muffled wet slap as he throws the used cloth in the laundry basket.

“That’ll do,” Bellamy says quietly, voice croaking. He clears his throat before he continues. “Come here, put this on.”

She opens her eyes blearily, slowly pushing herself down off the sink, not quite trusting her shaky legs to hold her up. A second later she feels the heavy weight of a leather jacket settle around her shoulders, Bellamy helping her thread her arms through the sleeves like she’s a child, mouth twisting in concentration as he carefully zips the jacket all the way up, covering her all the way to her collarbone. She twists her hands in the too-long sleeves, smiling up at him nervously, but he doesn’t return the gesture, face grim.

“You okay?” he asks, and she nods.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Wait,” Clarke says, reaching out to put her hand on Bellamy’s bicep, his body already turning away from her. She feels his arm stiffen under her palm, and she bites her lip, tugging gently on his sleeve. “Come back.”

He freezes, mouth tightening to a thin line, but Clarke tugs again, insistant, and reluctantly he turns back to face her, shoulders slumping. She tries to catch his eye, but he deliberately avoids her gaze, pupils darting around the room as he looks at anything but her - frustrated, she reaches up to cup his face in her hands, holding him in place, forcing him to look at her.

“Kiss me,” she says, leaning up into him, feeling soft and split open. “Kiss me, please.”

Bellamy doesn’t respond, no outward sign that he’s even heard her. She leans up to press her mouth to his, still and unmoving. “Bellamy,” she whispers against his lips, feeling him shake. When she pulls back, his eyes are closed, eyelashes resting dark against his tan skin. “Please.”

She aches, to be standing like this before him, nothing left holding her together, all the soft and vital parts of her spilling out just as surely as if he’d taken a knife and cut her open throat to thigh, as if he’d tightened his sharp white teeth around her neck and torn her in two. Can’t he see how much she needs him? Needs his life-giving mouth on hers, his steady hands on her body, putting her back together, mending all her broken and bleeding parts, making her whole again?

_His large hands, still stained red with her blood, holding her very heart in his hands, the only thing keeping it beating?_

Bellamy lets her pull his face down to hers, stands patiently while she dots little kisses over his skin, her hands fluttering anxiously over him, curling tight in his hair, tracing over the sharp line of his jaw, fingers catching on the rasp of his stubble. She kisses the furrow in his brow, the strong bridge of his nose, the little white scar on his upper lip. His mouth twitches, jaw clenching, hands remaining resolute at his side.

“Kiss me,” she begs, desperation creeping like a whine into her voice, going up on tip-toes to wrap her arms around his neck, almost toppling them both over as she presses herself frantically against him, the hard and unyielding wall of his body. She almost collapses with relief when his hands finally come up to twine through her hair, his calloused thumbs smoothing over her cheeks.

“Shh…” he says, voice thick, eyes still closed. He drops his head to rest his forehead against hers, strong fingers rubbing soothingly at the base of her neck. “Shh, baby.”

He kisses her slowly, carefully, like he’s worried that she might shatter under his touch, hands ghosting over her skin as if tracing over a thousand tiny fractures, mapping the damage caused by his earlier rough handling. His nose presses into her cheek as he angles his mouth over hers, so soft and hesitant that it almost doesn’t feel real - a phantom kiss, Clarke’s mouth left tingling and sore, aching for more, as if Bellamy’s mouth has already left hers.

As if Bellamy has already said goodbye.

They both exhale as he pulls away, Bellamy opening his eyes to stare deep into Clarke’s.

“Come on.”

\- -

Clarke does her best to hide behind Bellamy as they leave the bathroom, lowering her head to avoid the curious stares of the people waiting outside, grateful for the bulk of his body to shield her, the cover provided by his too-large jacket, hanging almost to her knees. He doesn’t look back once, moving quickly through the crowd, although his hand is tight around hers, his large fingers entwined closely with her smaller ones, holding on so firmly that the bones in her hand ache. Her thighs chafe unpleasantly with every step, skin still sticky despite Bellamy’s efforts to clean her up, her stomach clenching as she prays that no one can see the stiffness in her walk, the come she can still feel slowly seeping out of her.

What was it that Gaia had called her earlier? _Fresh meat_? Young and dumb, barely even a person in her own right, valuable only for the unspoken promise of untouched flesh, her only purpose to be used and consumed by others. Now even that limited value is lost to her, spent and _spoiled_ , the proof of her disgrace still dripping down her leg, thoroughly used if not quite yet discarded.

Clarke stumbles as she goes down the stairs, struggling to keep up with Bellamy’s long stride, mind turning dark as she conjures up all the vile and vicious words for _girls like her_ , sounding them out in her head, every name and insult like a handful of salt rubbed into a open wound. She doesn’t dare look up, not wanting to see the contempt in everyone’s faces, upper lips curling in disgust at the sight of her, backs turning as they lean in to talk behind cupped hands, narrowed eyes and venomous whispers following her every move.

Lost in her own black thoughts, she almost misses Octavia’s shout, her friend’s voice rising briefly over the noise of the party, her distinctive cackling laughter floating down the hallway from the kitchen. Bellamy stops dead, body tensing, then pivots on his heels towards the sound, almost dragging Clarke along in his rush to reach his sister.

Octavia laughs again as they walk into the kitchen, a brittle, discordant sound that sits uneasily in Clarke’s chest, jarring, like a note played on a badly tuned piano. She’s standing with Steve by the drinks table, arms wrapped loosely around his neck as she stares adoringly up into his face, both of them swaying slightly, silver hip flask catching the light as it dangles from one slender hand. As Clarke watches, Steve leans down to whisper something in her friend’s ear, almost toppling them both into the table when he stumbles over his own feet. Octavia squeals in excitement, tightening her grip around his neck, a bright grin lighting up her face - a smile that curdles instantly into a sneer when she looks up to see Bellamy and Clarke standing in the doorway.

Clarke cringes as Octavia looks her over slowly, dark eyes flashing in anger when she notices Bellamy’s jacket, delicate nose wrinkling in scorn before she takes a swig from the hip flask.

“Octavia.” Bellamy’s voice is even, deceptively calm, but he’s holding Clarke’s hand hard enough to break it. “We’re going.”

“So go,” Octavia shoots back instantly, imperious and slurred. She extricates herself from Steve, putting out a hand on the table to steady herself as she turns to face Bellamy, movements made slow and clumsy by alcohol. “I’m not stopping you.”

“You’re right - you’re not stopping us. Because you’re coming with us.”

Octavia raises her eyebrows skeptically, lifting her chin to stare Bellamy in the eye as she tilts the hip flask to her lips and takes a long, deliberate pull.

Bellamy’s face darkens, mouth twisting into a scowl, and he drops Clarke’s hand, stepping towards his sister - at the same time as Steve lurches forward to block his path.

Clarke bites her lip to keep from laughing, lifting her hands to cover her face as she silently shakes, hysteria bubbling dangerously close to the surface. She doesn’t know if it’s courage or stupidity motivating the teenage boy, so drunk that he’s barely able to hold himself upright, fighting just to keep his balance - but either way it’s ludicrous, a laughable attempt at bravado made even more ridiculous when Steve blinks slowly up at Bellamy, clearly having difficulty just focusing on his opponent.

“Leave her alone, man,” he blusters, raising a unsteady hand to jab a finger into Bellamy’s shoulder, swaying dangerously as his body follows his arm. “She’s old enough to decide what she wants to do.”

Bellamy looks down at Steve’s hand with a sneer before he swats it away easily, the teenager sent staggering.

“I warned you before,” he says, voice deepening to a growl that, even after everything, sends a small shiver running through Clarke’s body, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. “Get out of my way.”

The two men face off against each other, Bellamy drawing himself up to his full height so he looms threateningly over Steve, the teenager stubbornly holding his ground despite his obvious trepidation, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows nervously.

Distracted, neither of them notice Octavia suddenly sag back against the drinks table, putting her hand to her mouth.

“O?” Clarke says, alarmed, pushing past the fighting men to get closer to Octavia. “Are you okay?”

Bellamy looks up at Clarke’s touch on his arm, all thoughts of Steve forgotten, but before either of them can reach her Octavia suddenly rears up and dashes across the kitchen to the sink, where she proceeds to loudly and violently throw up.

People jump back as Octavia vomits into the sink, loud exclamations of disgust filling the room, Clarke’s cheeks burning red with second-hand humiliation. It’s a few long, excruciating moments before her friend finally stops retching and collapses against the counter, head hanging down, legs wobbling dangerously like they could give way at any second.

And then Bellamy’s there, next to his sister, leaning in to murmur something too quiet for Clarke to hear, ducking down to gently scoop her up against his chest, one arm under her knees and another supporting her shoulders. Despite her inebriated state, Octavia twists and writhes against his firm hold, feebly shoving at his chest in a pathetic attempt at escape.

“No,” she slurs, body stiffening and jerking like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “No, I don’t wanna go home. You don’t want me there anyway.”

Bellamy ignores her, only tightening his grip on her wriggling body, looking up to meet Clarke’s eyes and nodding his head towards the door.

Clarke follows along silently as he walks out, leaving Steve standing uselessly in the middle of the kitchen. Octavia gives up the fight against Bellamy almost immediately, slumping tiredly against her brother’s broad chest, eyes falling closed as she opens her fist to clutch at his t-shirt, thin fabric pulling against his neck as she twists it in her hand like a sleepy child. Bellamy handles her like she weighs less than air, easily but not carelessly, pulling her closer into his body as he manoeuvres through the front door, pressing his closed mouth against her dark hair.

The cold night air hits Clarke like a slap to the face, prickling at her bare legs like thousands of tiny needles, and she’s relieved to see that Bellamy’s parked right outside.

“Get in,” Bellamy says, sounding as exhausted as she feels. “It’s open.”

Clarke gets in the back, sliding along to make room for Octavia as Bellamy bends down to carefully lower his sister into the car, his large hand sliding up her neck to tenderly cradle her head. Octavia whines as he sets her down, shifting restlessly, head lolling against the seat as she turns away, opening unfocused eyes to peer blearily at Clarke before she closes them again.

“Hey!”

Steve’s shout echoes in the quiet night, but Bellamy ignores it, reaching over to delicately brush Octavia’s hair back off her face. Her breath is sour, her face pale and glistening with sweat, and her normally immaculate hair is tangled, hanging limp and lifeless against her cheek.

“Look after her, okay?” he says to Clarke. She nods, although her eyes flick nervously to Steve, who she can see approaching over Bellamy’s shoulder. Bellamy smiles reassuringly, putting out a hand to briefly cup her cheek, and she leans into it, brushing a quick kiss against his rough palm.

“Hey!”

Bellamy straightens up abruptly, turning to meet Steve just as he reaches the car.

“What the fuck is your problem, man? Why are you always on her ass? Why don’t you get your own life?”

All traces of Steve’s earlier drunkeness are gone, alcohol burnt away in the fire of rage, face twisted in anger as he spits the words at Bellamy. Clarke shifts anxiously, reaching out to put her arm around Octavia’s slim shoulders, drawing her friend against her, her friend’s breath hot on her neck.

Bellamy doesn’t move, planting himself squarely in front of the open car door, standing firm as Steve shoves hard at his chest, not even bothering to defend himself from the teenager’s clumsy blows.

“She’s my sister,” he says, jaw clenching at a particularly hard hit to his shoulder. “It’s my job to take care of her.”

“Whatever.” Steve retreats, circling Bellamy in agitation, raising his hands as he shouts. “You’re just a fucking loser who can’t accept that she doesn’t need you anymore. She can take care of herself.”

Clarke pulls back to check Octavia’s face, but her friend is dead to the world, brow furrowing slightly in her sleep.

Bellamy laughs humourlessly. “Is this what you call taking care of herself?” His hand tightens around the car door before he lets go, stepping heavily towards Steve. “Is this what you call taking care of my sister? Taking her to a party, putting your hands all over her, getting her so fucked up she can barely fucking walk?”

“Fuck you,” Steve spits, pointing at Bellamy. “That’s all on you. She was fucked up way before I got anywhere near her. You - ”

His next words are lost, abruptly cut off by Bellamy’s fist, landing with a sickening crunch right in the middle of his face. Steve crumples instantly to the concrete, hands going up protectively to cover his nose. Bellamy stands over him in the darkness, flexing his fingers as he looks down at the teenager with contempt.

“You come anywhere near my sister again and I’ll kill you,” Bellamy says quietly. He crouches down, rubbing his sore knuckles. “They’ll need a mop to clean you up off the sidewalk after I’m done.”

Steve nods hurriedly, eyes visibly watering over his hand. Bellamy stands up slowly, turning away from the teenager, and then pauses, looking up towards the car. It’s too dark for Clarke to see his face, her heart pounding in her chest as she stares up at him, but something makes her swallow heavily, a slow tendril of desire curling to life in her belly.

Bellamy straightens up and turns around, landing a swift, vicious kick to Steve’s stomach. The teenager lets out a strangled groan, curling up into a tight ball as he gasps for breath, his hand scrabbling across the concrete.

Clarke leans over and pulls the car door closed.

The car dips as Bellamy gets in, doing up his seatbelt with a tiny _snick_ , car keys jangling as he puts them in the ignition.

“She okay?” he says, twisting round to look at Clarke over his shoulder.

She nods, and he starts the engine. 

\- -

It’s a quiet drive back home, an uneasy silence broken only by Octavia’s occasional groans and all her little noises of dissatisfaction, tossing her head and whining every time Bellamy takes a turn or brakes at a red light. About halfway through the journey she crumples down to curl up on the seat, pushing her head into Clarke’s lap, demanding even in her drunken stupor. Clarke strokes over her head to soothe her, letting her fingers run through her soft hair, gently teasing out the tangles with patient fingertips.

She hums quietly, measuring out each stroke to the steady rhythm of her breath. Her own head is swimming, a faint headache pressing in at her temples, her stomach roiling with the movements of the car, but the repetitive motions help to ground her, give her something to think about besides her own discomfort.

_Inhale, stroke. Exhale, stroke._

Once, skin prickling, Clarke looks up to find Bellamy watching her in the rearview mirror. They’re pulled up at a red light, next to a massive billboard that fills the car with a bright neon glow, a kaleidoscope of colours playing out across his skin, a constantly shifting interplay of shadow and light that redraws his face with each new rotation. Now he’s bathed in an unearthly blue light, every detail and imperfection starkly illuminated in unforgiving contrast; now a sickly blood red tinge that throws deep shadows over his face, familiar features remade into those of a stranger; now a yellow glow that reminds her of sepia, casting him into memory like some half-forgotten lover, a photograph unearthed after decades langushing in a closed drawer too painful to open. Only his eyes stay the same, a steady fixed point, focused on her.

Clarke looks down, breathing steadily through her mouth as she concentrates on the rhythm.

_Inhale, stroke. Exhale, stroke._

To soothe Octavia?

Or to soothe herself?

\- -

Bellamy pulls into the driveway slowly, cutting the lights and easing the car whisper-quiet over the gravel, not wanting to bring the neighbours to their windows. Shutting off the engine, he takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he wills himself to _get it together_ , grateful that Clarke can’t see his expression, the way that his hands shake on the wheel. At some point during the drive all the adrenaline must hav finally left his system, leaving behind nothing but a queasy feeling in his stomach, regret sitting heavy in his chest and seeping through his body in the form of a bone-deep exhaustion, tiredness prickling at his sore eyelids.

His hand aches when he tightens it on the wheel, the thin skin of his knuckles sore and abraded, but he welcomes it - welcomes the sharp sting not just as what he deserves but as the sign of a job well done, satisfying that dark part of him that cries out for payment in blood and flesh, the swift and ruthless destruction of anyone that threatens his girls. If he lets himself think about what could have happened tonight, all the ways that they could have been hurt, all the ways that he could have lost them…

_It’s fine_ , he tells himself, feeling his heart rate start to pick up again. _They’re fine._

Eventually he summons the will to open his eyes again, the energy to get out of the car, going immediately to the rear passenger door and opening it. Clarke startles like she’s been interrupted, looking up at him with wide eyes, hand stilling on Octavia’s head in her lap, her pale skin standing out like white bone against his sister’s black hair. He’s almost jealous of his little sister, mess that she is, wanting nothing more at that moment than to be comforted by Clarke, to be held and reassured and loved by her, knowing that his night is still far from over.

“O?” he says softly, his sister grumbling sleepily in response, snuggling down further into Clarke’s lap. “Come here, baby.”

It takes some effort to wake Octavia up, but this time when he goes to lift her she doesn’t even try to fight him, only reaching out her skinny arms to wrap tightly around his neck, leaning her head quietly on his chest, soft and trusting as an infant. Memory chimes deep in his chest like an echo, a thousand other times he’s held her exactly like this, memory overlapping memory like ripples in a deep and silent pool, reaching all the way back to the very core of him. He stands up slowly, careful not to knock her head against the doorframe, and she sighs, settling easily against him, her cheek pressed against his thundering heart.

“Can you - ” he starts to ask, turning back towards Clarke, but she’s already way ahead of him, reading his mind like always, scrambling out of the car and rushing ahead to get the front door. At least he hopes that’s what it is, slamming the car door closed with his foot then following her into the house, trying to ignore his growing sense of apprehension.

“Will she be okay?” Clarke asks when he catches up, waiting anxiously in the hallway, twisting her hands where she’s holding them in front of her chest. “Does she need to go to the hospital?”

Bellamy smiles gently, shaking his head, wishing he had enough room in his arms to scoop her up as well, a free hand to reach over and smooth the wrinkles from her brow.

“No, she’ll be alright.” He angles his chin down awkwardly to look at his sister, sleeping peacefully in his arms, smeared make-up only making her look even younger, just a little girl in dress-up after all. “She might be hungover in the morning, but she’ll survive.”

Clarke doesn’t look in the least bit reassured, blue eyes solemn as she stares at Octavia, catching her lower lip between her teeth.

“We should clean her up though,” he continues, adjusting his grip on his sister so he doesn’t drop her, hand flexing around her slender thigh. “Or she won’t be very happy in the morning. Help me get her in the shower?”

He sets Octavia down gently on the closed toilet when they reach the bathroom, Clarke helping to keep her upright as he busies himself with turning on the shower, waiting impatiently for the old water heater to groan to life, testing the temperature with his elbow like he used to when Octavia was a baby. Behind him he can hear Clarke quietly murmuring, coaxing his sister to swill her mouth out with mouthwash, the soft spit of fluid in the sink. When he turns back to them, Clarke is using a wipe to gently clean the make-up off Octavia’s face, Bellamy cringing as she pulls off the other girl’s false lashes.

“Here we go,” he mutters, kneeling down in front of Octavia to take off her ridiculous heels, briefly massaging her cold feet with his hands, tiny in his broad palms. “Can you stand up?”

Octavia’s still got enough sass to roll her eyes at him, but she wobbles dangerously when she stands up, colt-like legs unsteady, Clarke forced to quickly put out a hand to support her. Bellamy looks at his sister, mouth twisting as he considers his options. The last thing that he needs tonight is to take her to the hospital with a concussion - or worst, covered in cuts and broken glass from a shattered shower-screen.

Mind made up, Bellamy kicks off his shoes and efficiently strips down to his boxer-briefs, throwing his clothes into the far corner of the room. Clarke turns away as he undresses, coy as a virgin - whether for Octavia’s benefit or her own, he can’t tell, although her innocent act is slightly undermined by the fact that her pale neck is still bruised from his sister’s mouth, the knowledge that his come is still slowly seeping out of her.

Bellamy stares at her turned back, fresh shame flooding through him as he remembers his earlier treatment of her - unable to escape the sudden thought that maybe it’s more than mere embarrassment causing Clarke’s new shyness. Something more than simple guilt in how she’s refusing to meet his gaze, how she shrinks from his touch, how she practically fled from him earlier, running into the house in an obvious effort to put as much distance between them as possible.

Something less like regret, and more like fear.

Clenching his jaw, Bellamy crouches down to undo Octavia’s shorts, pulling them down her slender thighs to pool around her ankles, her sharp nails digging into his shoulders as she holds onto him for balance, clumsily kicking away the tiny scrap of denim. Now it’s turn to avert his eyes, looking down at the floor, focusing on the stained linoleum tile as he desperately tries to ignore the fact that he’s inches away from his baby sister’s cunt, pretending that he’s not close enough to smell her, to see exactly how damp she is through the wet fabric, the outline of her visible through thin cotton. He exhales, sending out a silent prayer of thanks that at least she’s wearing underwear.

_Unlike Clarke._

From the awkward silence in the room, he can tell that he’s not the only one thinking it.

He leaves Octavia’s top on. It’s thin enough that it won’t get in the way, and no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise, clinging to the final shreds of a desperate big brother’s hope, he knows that there’s no way she’s wearing a bra under the flimsy garment.

“Right,” he says and picks Octavia up, his hands almost meeting around her tiny waist, huffing slightly with the effort as he steps carefully into the bathtub, holding her against him. She cries out when he manhandles her under the tepid spray - cool enough to wake her up, warm enough not to send her into shock - but he only tightens his hold on her body, keeping her under the flow despite her vehement protests.

“No,” Octavia whines, scrunching her face up, plastering herself against his body in a futile attempt to escape the water, writhing like it burns. “Bellamy, no.”

“Come on, O,” he says reassuringly, struggling to keep hold of her wet, wriggling body, gritting his teeth as he tries to ignore the feel of her slippery skin against his, her hard little nipples rubbing across his chest, all that soft friction against his rapidly stirring cock. “Come on, baby, please, trust me.”

Bellamy breathes deeply in an attempt to get himself under control, acutely aware of Clarke watching them, sickened by himself, what kind of man he must be to be getting turned on by this. What kind of man he must be to be so painfully aroused by his own sister so drunk and helpless, so exquisitely vulnerable, held captive against his own body.

The kind of man that haunted his childhood, that blackened his mother’s eyes and emptied her bank accounts, that he’s spent his whole life trying to protect Octavia from, never thinking that the biggest danger to her might be himself. The kind of man who would kick a teenage boy when he’s already down, curled up on concrete and no longer a threat, reveling in the feel of his fist striking flesh, just punishment for the crime of touching what belongs to him. The kind of man who would do what he did tonight to Clarke, who could look into her soft, trusting eyes and take her roughly up against a wall, like an animal, drunk on lust and the sick sense of his own guilt, dirtying her with his own filthy desire.

When he finally dares to look up, Clarke is gone.

Wordlessly he pushes Octavia away, reaching for the shampoo and lathering up her hair, hands gentle as he slowly massages her scalp, carefully cradling her head in his hands. She stills - she always did enjoy having her hair washed - and leans into his touch, preening under his attention like a cat, sleepy eyes slanting up at him in lazy pleasure. He tips her head back under the spray, using one hand to rinse the bubbles out of her hair while he protects her eyes with the other, skimming away the suds with his palm.

He swallows heavily, hating himself, unable to stop his eyes from trailing down her body, his sister’s wet top clinging to her slight curves like a second skin, outlining her perky little tits, her tight drawn-up nipples, almost more obscene than if she’d just been naked. It’s been a long time since he’s allowed himself to think about how it felt to be inside her, but now the memory returns, his stomach twisting with long-denied desire as he remembers the tight grip of her cunt, the unbelievable heat of her body, hot enough to burn. She’s so slender, so light in his arms. It would be so easy to lift her up against the tile, to move her soaking panties to the side, to slip inside her. So easy to lean down and take her nipple in his mouth, to touch her with deliberate hands, to finally hear what she sounds like when she takes her pleasure from him.

He could make her feel good, better than Steve ever could or ever would have.

_He could hurt her, break her and make her hate him, just like he hurt Clarke tonight._

Bellamy leans over and shuts off the shower. Octavia, contrary little thing that she is, whines as the water abruptly stops, blinking up at him with accusing eyes that he firmly ignores, leaning over to grab a towel off the rail. He gives himself a cursory rub-down before he drapes it around her shoulders, safely covering her from view.

“Ready?”

He gets out first, making sure that both his feet are firmly planted on the linoleum before he leans over and picks Octavia up again, ignoring the little voice in his head telling him that she can probably support herself now in favour of savouring the warmth of her body against his bare chest, her wet hair spreading out like a fan across his skin. She barely weighs more in his arms than she did as a toddler - if he closes his eyes, he can almost smell the baby powder.

The house is quiet when Bellamy carries Octavia out into the hallway. Cool and dark and silent as a secret, no sign that Clarke is even still there aside from the strip of light shining underneath the girls’ bedroom door, pointedly drawn closed. He stops when he sees it, struck as if by a blow, physical proof of this new distance between them, damage done and nowhere near mended, a silent accusation just as damning as any raised voice, any pointed finger. Enough to bring him to his knees, were he not holding Octavia in his arms.

Clarke would forgive him, he knows. Her soft heart bruised, but not yet hardened towards him, trust shaken but not yet shattered, her endless faith in him not yet run out, as misplaced as it is necessary for him to keep breathing. Bellamy could still go to her. Could dry the tears from her adoring eyes, kiss away the bruises from her perfect skin, lay his head on her breast and feel her heart, still beating for him. Use her to make himself whole again, as he has so many times before.

But what right does he have to ask for her forgiveness? What peace could he hope to find in bargaining her happiness for his own, her innocence for his own selfish comfort? How could he live with himself, cursed to know forever that the price of his broken soul is hers?

How can he ask for absolution, not knowing if he’ll sin again?

Bellamy carries Octavia to his bedroom instead, setting her down on the edge of his mattress. She doesn’t let go easily - skinny arms locking around his neck with surprising strength, hanging on when he tries to stand up - and he’s forced to reach up and physically extricate himself from his sister’s painful grip, carefully pulling her face away where she’s buried it into the side of his neck. He half-expects her to sink her teeth into him, knowing from experience that Octavia has no problems fighting dirty, and he’s relieved when she only slumps down on the bed instead, her last remaining bit of fight extinguished, finally defeated.

Going to his dresser, he hesitates, then pulls out a clean t-shirt and boxers.

“Here,” he says, offering them out to her. “Get dressed.”

Octavia makes no move to take them, only looking up at him in seemingly genuine confusion, hands curling tightly into the towel where it covers her lap.

_Please_ , he thinks desperately, standing there with his hand awkwardly outstretched, already at the very edge of his self-control, knowing that there’s no way he can dress her himself. _Don’t make me._

_Don’t make me take a test I already know I’ll fail._

Bellamy stands there for long moments, long enough that his hand begins to shake, but finally, blessedly, Octavia decides to take pity on him, mouth screwing up into a petulant scowl as she grabs the clothes. He turns around, almost dizzy with relief, and grabs a pair of sweatpants off the back of his desk chair, pulling them quickly on over his damp underwear. Then stares at the blank wall, _not_ letting himself think about his baby sister getting naked on his bed, barely two feet away from him.

A shiver runs down his spine when Octavia suddenly speaks, so quiet and hesistant it doesn’t even sound like her, barely loud enough to break through the silence between them, like an echo repeated one too many times, worn out and faded almost past recognition.

“Do you still love me?”

“What?”

Bellamy turns around slowly, not believing what he’s hearing. Octavia’s sat on the bed, fully dressed, wet towel in a messy heap at her feet, staring down at her hands in her lap. She’s almost drowning in his clothes, his t-shirt so big that it’s falling off one shoulder, and out of nowhere he has the horrible urge to laugh out loud, laughter bubbling in his throat as his brain short-circuits, wondering if this is a nightmare.

“Do you still love me,” Octavia repeats, low and emotionless, like she doesn’t even hear what she’s saying, what she’s asking him. Like she’s not ripping his fucking heart out of his chest. “I know I’m difficult, and - ”

“Shut up,” Bellamy says fiercely, surprising even himself with the force of his exclamation, and Octavia looks up, startled. He catches himself, forcing himself to calm down as he sits down on the bed next to her, forcing himself to be gentle as he takes her face in his hands.

“Oh my god,” he whispers, looking into his sister’s face, as familiar as his own and infinitely more beloved, every line and curve long since committed to memory, the holiest language he knows, the only religion he’s ever believed in. What has he done, that she could ever doubt how much he loves her? “Of course I love you. How could you even ask that?”

Bellamy pulls Octavia into his arms, her head tucked under his chin, her shaking body held safely against his own. He closes his eyes, feeling her heart pounding against his own - the same heart beating in two chests, the same blood in both their veins, only skin keeping them apart, stopping them from coming back together, melting back into the same consciousness.

“Of course I love you.”

\- -

Clarke throws her dress in the laundry hamper, her bra swiftly following a second later. Standing naked in the middle of the room, she winces as her thighs rub together, the delicate skin tender and sore, chafed from the rough denim of Bellamy’s jeans. Reaching down, she cringes when she feels how wet she still is, face flooding red with humiliation even though she’s alone, light-headed with shame and whatever remnants of alcohol are still lurking in her system, closing her eyes briefly as a wave of nausea passes over her.

She drops to the floor, rummaging through the bottom drawer of the dresser, looking for the biggest, baggiest set of pyjamas she can find: red flannel, a Christmas gift from her mother two years earlier, so oversized that they’re too big for her even now, her mom nothing if not reliable when it comes to her unflattering perception of Clarke’s size.

Pulling the pants out of the drawer, Clarke freezes - and quickly grabs a pair of panties, almost falling over in her haste to put them on first.

Safely enrobed in thick red cotton, she scrapes her hair back into a messy ponytail and grabs a packet of make-up remover wipes, padding wearily across the room to the mirror. It’s only exhaustion that keeps Clarke from gasping when she sees her reflection, tired eyes dispassionately taking in what remains of her make-up: her foundation long since worn off, blotchy skin providing a fitting backdrop for her smudged mascara, the faded eyeshadow gathering in the creases of her eyelids, her lipstick smeared beyond saving by the hard press of first Octavia, and then Bellamy’s mouths. She looks pathetic, like a back-alley drug addict or a cautionary character in a soap opera, a soft girl fallen on hard times and an even harder life. She looks like -

Like exactly what she is. Like a girl that would sneak out to a house party and get drunk, making a fool of herself in front of a house full of strangers. Like a girl that would cheat on her boyfriend with his own sister, so desperate and needy that he can barely bring himself to touch her, all tenderness and care worn thin, leaving behind only blind, uncaring lust. Like a girl that would betray her best friend, not just once but over and over, thinking of nothing but her own feelings, her own wants and selfish desires.

Like a girl that, even now, can’t resist seeking out a comfort that she knows she doesn’t deserve.

Face newly scrubbed clean, Clarke creeps out into the hallway. The bathroom light is off, the house shrouded in darkness, but through the gloom she can see that Bellamy’s bedroom door is open, pale moonlight slanting across the carpet, beckoning her forward.

She pauses before she enters, hand on the doorframe, suddenly hesistant, unsure of what she’ll find inside. What kind of welcome can she possibly expect to receive, intruding once again where she doesn’t belong, where her very presence is a threat? Hasn’t she done enough damage already, to both brother and sister and the once unbreakable bond between them, a slow and sweet and deadly erosion, like a gently flowing river over rock, at once both innocent and destructive? What excuse can she possibly hope to offer, what kind of apology that won’t sound hollow, falling from her deceitful mouth?

In the end it’s only the thought of going back to her empty bed that spurs Clarke on, fingers tightening on the wooden dooframe as she summons up what little remains of her courage, taking a tentative step forward into the room.

The curtains are open, silver light illuminating the siblings where they sleep on top of the covers, their bodies so closely entwined that at first Clarke can’t even tell them apart, her tired eyes seeing only one otherworldly creature with tangled black hair and a mess of limbs, shadows caressing over skin that’s at once both copper and cream, the quiet night broken by a single, shared breath. Slowly her eyes adjust, and she begins to make sense of what she’s seeing - brother and sister asleep facing one another, their legs interwoven, Octavia’s thin arms wrapped around her brother’s torso, holding on as though to keep from drowning, her face buried in his bare chest. For his part, Bellamy’s arms are wrapped around his sister just as tightly, his chin resting atop her head, face smooth and free from tension, a kind of contentment that Clarke’s not sure she’s ever seen on him before, as if he were holding part of his own soul in his arms.

Clarke’s heart sinks. She was right. There’s no room for her here. Perhaps there never was.

Suddenly Bellamy’s eyes open, finding her immediately even in the dark night, the mattress shifting as he tightens his arms protectively around his sister. Clarke opens her mouth to apologise, knowing immediately that she’s made a terrible mistake, intruded on an intimacy that wasn’t hers to break, already stepping back into the hallway -

\- stopping, when Bellamy holds his hand out to her.

Slowly, her heart in her throat, Clarke steps inside, scared even to breathe as she quietly approaches the bed. Bellamy’s eyes never leave hers, fierce and watchful as she carefully lays down on the other side of Octavia, freezing when her weight tips the mattress, the other girl shifting restlessly in response, murmuring into her brother’s chest. He tightens his arm around his sister, dropping a kiss to the top of her head to soothe her, and she settles back into sleep, letting out a tiny sigh.

Reaching out, Clarke finds Bellamy’s hand on the mattress between them, his fingers twining tightly through hers in the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're into sleep series and want more content/sneak peeks/head canons, you can check out the sleep series tag on my tumblr! star-sky-earth.tumblr.com/tagged/sleep-series 
> 
> Or...you can also follow my nsfw inspiration sideblog daddy-belllamy.tumblr.com ;)


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